


Staircase Wit

by splix



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-05-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:53:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splix/pseuds/splix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>L'esprit de l'escalier</i> - Sherlock never suffers from it, which isn't to say he doesn't suffer <i>for</i> it. Five times he took a beating, and one time he got away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thirteen

1\. Thirteen

 

 

It was a puzzle of no small irritation that Sherlock hadn’t yet been able to work out the pattern of bullying adopted by the thick-witted, foul-smelling, spotty group of snot rags he was forced to call his schoolmates. He’d attempted to apply logic and mathematics to the problem, considering as many variables as he could: school schedule, time of day, days of week, instructor mood, assignments, barometric pressure, temperature, occurrence of compulsory chapel, days of sport versus days of rest – there was nothing for it, not yet anyway; until further data presented itself, he was compelled to conclude that the bullying was totally random. It was annoying and undignified, but he’d sort it out eventually. Until that glorious day arrived, though, he was reduced to scurrying around like a rat in an effort to avoid a thrashing. Mostly, he managed; today, he hadn’t.

“Holmes.” Bernie Halloran exhaled a noxious fume of mingled sausage, chips, chocolate biscuit, and contraband cigarette into Sherlock’s face as he shoved him up against the cool, sweating brick of the gymnasium. “You fucking swot. Licking Chandler’s arse again?”

If it was still worth trying to reckon what made Halloran, Pettit, Walser, Boothby, and Stokes seek him out on a given day or time, it was useless to wonder what the end result of their encounters would be; it was always pathetically predictable, and would have been boring had Sherlock not usually ended up on the ground in a heap afterward. He could have fought one, or even two, and won, but in the manner of all bullies, they made certain that wouldn’t happen. He didn’t fear them, not exactly, but he didn’t like getting thrashed, and he refused to cower, cringe, or toady in their presence. He knew they waited for the moment of desperation when he’d fight back. Every time it had happened, he’d counseled himself to be indifferent to their taunting, but then they’d shove or kick him and he’d take a swipe at one of them until they ended up rugby-tackling him from all sides and beating him bloody and breathless.

“I’m surprised you even know his name,” Sherlock replied coolly. That was as non-confrontational as he was willing to get, and besides, it was true. Halloran was a notoriously poor student; the only reason he was allowed to remain was that his father was an Old Etonian and gave pots and pots of money to the school to ensure that his flea-brained son would be permitted to remain.

“’Course I know his name. He’s the biggest fucking poofter in the school. Besides you, that is.”

“Right. Naturally. Stupid of me. Stands to reason you’d keep a list of poofters. So much more interesting than studying maths or chemistry or anything. I bet it occupies a lot of time, though – hard to form those letters, what with you not really knowing how to write very well. Let me know if you need the word _poofter_ spelled.”

Halloran grinned, revealing teeth that had only a nodding acquaintance with rudimentary dental hygiene. “Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you?” 

“You’re a turd, Holmes,” Boothby put in.

Sherlock snorted. _God, they’re dull._ “Thanks.” Contempt lent speed and blistering accuracy to his tongue. “You say that every time you see me, you know, and it’s starting to get a bit tired. I know you’ve just learned human speech, but you _could_ vary your insults a little. It wouldn’t make you less of a sad, boring wank –“ Sherlock stopped speaking as Boothby drove a fist into his stomach. He gasped and fell to his knees, dropping his violin case and holding his midsection. Unbidden, tears sprang to his eyes. Boothby’s fist had felt like a hammer. _What the hell –_

Boothby was grinning and holding up his fist, which appeared to have been wrapped with the remnants of a wire hanger. “You bored now, turd?”

Halloran grasped Sherlock’s tie just below its knot and dragged him upward. Unwilling to let Halloran strangle him, Sherlock struggled to his feet, wheezing for breath as he glared daggers, not sparing anyone. Halloran and Boothby laughed, but the others looked slightly uneasy – as well they might. They hadn’t exactly chosen a remote location for this particular assault. One of the prefects or instructors could stroll by at any moment. Sherlock played for time. “Let go,” he said in the soft voice he heard his father use before an explosion of anger. “Or you’ll be sorry. I promise.”

It didn’t work. Halloran laughed at him. “Sorry? You fucking shirt-lifter. We saw you staying after in the lab to talk to Chandler. What were you doing – sucking him off?”

“You’re really fixated on speculating that I might be a homosexual, aren’t you?” 

“Don’t have to _speculate_ ,” Pettit said in a high, lisping voice.

Sherlock didn’t bother to respond to Pettit’s taunt, nor did he look into Pettit’s weaselly face. He merely sighed, as if it were all too tedious to be borne. “If you’re quite finished, I’ve got to go.” He didn’t dare to look down at his violin case; if they saw he was concerned for it, they’d probably smash it to bits.

“No, we’re not fucking finished.” Boothby slammed Sherlock against the brick again, moved in and grasped Sherlock’s tie, twisting it round in his hand until his fist was pressed hard against Sherlock’s throat. He smiled, showing his blond, blue-eyed, square-jawed looks off to good advantage. Beauty had all sorts of perquisites; well-built and even taller than Sherlock, Boothby was the nasty sort who gave younger, smaller pupils hearty thumps on the back in mock friendliness, sending them sprawling and then giggling about it, and the instructors and prefects turned a blind eye because Boothby knew how to smile angelically and look innocent, even when he was grinding his heel into another boy’s foot. 

“Go on, Holmes,” Boothby said. “Tell us. Do you suck Chandler’s cock after class?”

Sherlock drew back at an unpleasant, familiar smell that seemed to drift from Boothby’s pores, and then something clicked inside his head – a strange flash of insight. He narrowed his eyes, staring at Boothby, taking in the cant of his shoulders, the swollen lips, the faint crust at the corner of his mouth that could have been saliva, but, Sherlock realised with sudden malicious glee, wasn’t. “No, I don’t. But tell me, Boothby – how did Halloran taste?”

It was a pleasure – no, a _thrill_ \-- to watch the color drain from Boothby’s face. Beside him, Halloran’s mouth dropped open, and the other boys gaped at Sherlock as if he’d begun singing opera in Hindustani. “What did you say?” Boothby asked, in the same soft voice Sherlock had adopted from his father and, Sherlock noted ruefully and with the smallest shiver of fear, was rather better at it.

But the fear paled before the triumph; he’d worked it out, the reason and rhyme behind the beatings. “God, it’s so obvious. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. The lot of you, coming from the gym. Showers, equipment rooms, plenty of dark corners. Do you hang about in a circle, or pair up, or what?” Sherlock flicked a glance at the dumbstruck boys. “No, not you, Stokes. You’re the lookout, aren’t you? Your clothes are orderly, not put on in a hurry. You’ve got time to fix yourself up, comb your hair, while you wait. The rest of you –“ Sherlock allowed his mouth to curve in a contemptuous smile. “You’re not even gay, probably, but where else are you going to get any around here? So you creep off to the showers or – yes, the showers. Knees are damp, Walser – and you have it off with each other, but that doesn’t quite assuage the guilt, I guess, because you’ve got to expend your energy and the rest of that unused testosterone, so you call me gay and beat me up. I doubt I’m the only one, either. Well done.” He looked at Boothby, grinning into that handsome face. “Probably should have wiped the spunk off your face before leaving. I mightn’t have known if you hadn’t moved so close. You smell like the hall of residence before it’s been properly aired.”

There was a silence, in which the boys glanced uneasily at each other, except for Boothby, who still pressed Sherlock to the wall. “I’m going to fucking _kill_ you,” he whispered.

Sherlock’s stomach roiled unhappily at what sounded like a deeply sincere promise, but he’d die before admitting he was scared. He might die anyway, so he hadn’t much to lose. “Why? Did I miss something?”

“Hold him,” Boothby said, and like the thugs they were, Halloran and Walser grasped Sherlock’s arms.

“Will –“ That was Stokes, looking scared. “Someone might come and see.”

“Fuck off,” Boothby said. He wiped at the corner of his mouth and touched Sherlock’s lower lip. His face was grave and thoughtful, not at all the expression of bored annoyance he wore in lectures. “Someday I’m going to make you really eat it, Holmes, but right now I’m going to teach you a lesson. You like learning, don’t you…swot?”

For an answer, Sherlock spit at him. Boothby looked comically stunned, and Sherlock almost had time to laugh before the wire-wrapped fist plowed into him again. The two boys holding him started kicking and punching with their free hands, and no matter how much Sherlock struggled, he couldn’t get away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pettit scooping up his violin case. “No –“

They closed in on him, snarling, panting, grunting, and Sherlock crumpled beneath the hail of fists and feet. It hurt more than he could have possibly imagined, and he opened his mouth to scream – to hell with dignity, he needed help, he hadn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell against these five thugs – but a kick to his kidney put paid to that notion immediately. He writhed in torment, mouth still open in a silent shriek. He thought he would pass out. _Don’t you dare, don’t you dare. They really will murder you if you faint._ He bit the tip of his tongue, and the pain cleared his head a little. He kicked out, and someone grabbed his arm and rolled him to his belly, twisting his arm up behind his back. They wouldn’t stop; relentless, the beating went on and on and on. _Oh God, it HURTS –_

“You there! _Hey!_ ”

The hands and feet melted away. Sherlock fought for air, then let the world lapse into a grey fog.

It was very comfortable.

 

 

*

 

 

Violet leaned against the car door, smoking a Dunhill and absently plucking at a loose thread on her heather-tweed coat. She crossed one foot in front of the other, noting but not acknowledging the appreciative glances of the men and even some of the boys who streamed by, staring in admiration at her long legs, the curves of her body not quite concealed by her nonchalantly worn green Dior dress, the face that had once made her the darling of _Tatler_ and _Harpers & Queen_. Why should she? She knew what she looked like, and didn’t take it for granted, but there was no point in beauty unless it could be used to some particular advantage. 

Not an easy lesson to learn.

The door opened, and Sherlock trudged out, battered suitcase in one hand, violin case in the other, sporting equipment slung over one shoulder. His face was crosshatched with long, ugly cuts, his lower lip was split and puffy, and one eye was half-closed and blacker than soot. Violet sighed, overcome with twin impulses to clasp Sherlock close in her arms, and to shake some sense into him. Since neither reaction was even remotely appropriate, she dropped her cigarette to the ground, crushed it under her shoe, and opened the rear car door. “Come on, get your things in the back.”

Sherlock flung his suitcase and sports bag on the rear seat, but kept his violin case close. He slammed the door and climbed into the car, thumping down sullenly and staring out the window.

“Seat belt,” Violet said crisply, sliding into her seat and buckling her own belt as an example (she hated the damned things, but an argument was the last thing she wanted at the moment). She stared coolly at Sherlock until he complied, then started the car. She drove through the college grounds in silence, only now and then glancing at her son, who slumped down as far as the belt would allow and continued to stare out the window. She eased onto the motorway and accelerated, rolling the window down a bit to inhale the freshening early-spring air.

She wasn’t going to say a word, not one bloody word. Let him speak first. It was more than slightly ridiculous, this contest of wills that she doubted Sherlock even understood – he was thirteen, for God’s sake, and she didn’t know how to talk to him. Oh, she must have been just as willful, just as stubborn at that age, but Sherlock was a creature of deep silences and dark waters, and she had no idea what was going on behind those pale, slanted eyes so like her own. She glanced again at his white, strained face, at the cuts and bruises, and silently thanked the heavens that Siger was at the Kensington flat. If Siger had been the one to receive the call….

Violet shook her head and fished the pack of cigarettes from her bag. She lit one deftly, one-handed, and inhaled, spoiling the faint tang of freshness seeping into the car from the open window.

God knows she’d _tried_. She’d insisted on raising the children herself, even though Siger had disapproved strenuously and her own parents had offered to pay for a nanny, and she thought she hadn’t done such a horrid job. She didn’t believe in any faddish pop-psychological nonsense about befriending one’s child; Mycroft and Sherlock had been brought up in the nursery firmly, but fairly, wanting for nothing but taught to appreciate the myriad advantages of their exceedingly comfortable life. A sensible routine of afternoon walks, bedtime stories, a pretty tea table – she’d been raised that way and remembered it quite well enough to duplicate it – and both boys had been perfect darlings in early childhood. Adolescence, she mused with another sigh, was something different.

Mycroft, at least, was still lovely, gallant and respectful, and if he was a bit plump, what of it? Only Siger chided him about his weight, failing to notice that his contemptuous remarks only caused Mycroft to resort to nervous eating. Violet defended Mycroft, but much as she had hated to see him go, it had been a blessing when he had left for Eton and then directly to Cambridge. He avoided Siger now, only visiting Violet when he knew his father was absent from the house or flat. But Sherlock…Sherlock was too young to escape, and he hadn’t the caution nor the diplomatic nature to keep his mouth shut when it was necessary, to avoid his father’s irritation, his occasional raw anger and sometimes heavy hand. If Siger saw Sherlock’s face, he would likely say that the beating had been well-deserved.

Bastard.

Violet stubbed out the Dunhill in the ashtray, leaving an acrid odor behind. “Well?” It had been all of fifteen minutes, but she couldn’t resist speaking; it was a failing in her character, and she wielded it like a weapon when necessary. Sherlock had the same flaw, but he hadn’t learned temperance yet. God help him.

“Well, what?”

“Have you got anything to say for yourself?”

Sherlock was silent for a moment. “We’re not going to the flat?” He sounded disappointed.

“That is not what I meant. And no, we’re not going to the flat.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need some peace and quiet. And your father’s at the flat this week. He’s…entertaining.” _Entertaining some trollop who’ll probably wear my bloody dressing gown all week and get lipstick and cheap perfume on it._

Sherlock snorted. “Entertaining.”

Violet said nothing. Sherlock knew. Both boys knew only too well what their father was like. And with a sudden and quite unexpected tug of maternal pride, Violet was proud of them. They were brilliant boys, keen and perceptive and extraordinary. She’d fed their curiosity about the world eagerly, buying them crate-loads of books, taking them to museums, allowing them to explore the far-flung reaches of their intellect. She hadn’t been permitted the same freedom, nor had Siger as a boy, but while Siger was content to see them become City boys, ordinary, Sloaney, boring bankers or brokers or solicitors just as long as they were, God save us, Old Etonians, Violet had yearned for something different for them. What, she wasn’t quite certain, but she understood, with a quiet conviction, that neither Mycroft nor Sherlock were meant for ordinary lives. 

But there was a sort of knuckling-under one was obliged to perform first. One couldn’t simply wreak havoc and not expect to be punished for it, and so Violet applied herself to the problem again. “Your headmaster informed me that you’re to remain at home until the end of this term, at which point you are to write an appeal detailing the reasons you wish to return to school and how you intend to better yourself. I expect you’ve heard the same.”

Sherlock stared out the window.

“ _Sherlock_.”

“I’ve heard,” Sherlock muttered.

“Fighting, darling? Honestly, I’m disappointed. I expected more from you.”

“I’m sorry, Mummy.”

“I know that tone. You’re not a bit sorry. Are you going to tell me what it was all about?”

“No.”

“Because the headmaster said that boy – Boothby, I can’t remember his Christian name – said you accused him of something really awful.”

“Did he say what?”

“He said modesty and delicacy forbade him to speak of it.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sherlock said, sitting up in his seat to glare at her. “Boothby wasn’t _there_ , was he?”

Violet frowned. “No, of course not.”

“Boothby’s parents?”

“No.”

“Well, you know it’s a load of bollocks, don’t you?”

“Mind your tongue,” Violet said sharply. “So what did you say?”

Sherlock slumped down in his seat again and fiddled with the horn closure on his duffel coat. “Boothby’s a bully and a prat, and everything I said about him was completely true.”

“That doesn’t answer my question, young man.”

Despondently, Sherlock shook his head and ran a hand through his regulation-short hair. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me. I’m the one who’s got to explain to your father exactly why you’ve been booted out of school, Sherlock, and as you might guess, he is not going to be delighted to hear it.” Violet pulled the cigarettes from her bag again and fished one out. “Damn it, almost gone.” She clicked the lighter and inhaled ferociously. “So. You can either explain things to me, or you can explain them to your father.”

Sherlock let out a long sigh, unwittingly reminiscent of Violet’s own exasperated exhalations. “You’re not going to believe it.”

“Try me.”

“Boothby was performing fellatio on Halloran, and they called me a poof.”

Violet choked a little on her cigarette. She coughed and held on to the wheel through a veil of smoke-induced tears. _Fellatio! Where in heaven’s name did he learn – dear God._ The seriousness of her thirteen-year-old son’s voice kept her from a nervous giggle. How like Sherlock – every other teen-aged lad would probably say _blow job_ , but not her son. She took a deep breath and considered carefully before speaking her next words. “Would you care to elucidate?”

Sherlock explained, step by step, how the encounter had happened, and how he’d arrived at his conclusion. Violet listened, half-amused, half-marvelling, not a bit shocked, and believing him wholeheartedly. As the story went on, her heart clenched as she realised that the headmaster had omitted the truth about the fight. Five boys against one. Five on one. _Wretched_ little gits. She’d have clawed them blind, and with pleasure, if she could have done. Tears blurred her vision for a moment; angrily, she wiped them away.

At length she noticed that Sherlock was clutching his violin case tightly. “Darling…your violin. Did they….” Unable to finish, she reached out and touched his hand. So like hers, narrow and long and pale.

With another Violet-like sigh, Sherlock undid the clasps and showed her the shattered, splintered wood.

Violet bit her lip and focussed on the road. Hateful little bastards, the lot of them. Sherlock was well rid of them, of the whole bloody school. She’d be damned if she’d throw him back to the wolves after this. Siger could rage and storm as much as he bloody well pleased. It wasn’t his money that paid for Sherlock’s schooling at any rate.

Beside her, Sherlock was staring out the window again. Violet saw a wet streak on one white, lacerated cheek, and her heart clenched again. She hadn’t been raised to give in to public emotion, but she longed to pull the car over onto the side of the road and take her son in her arms, to rock him gently as she had when he was still very small, a curious, bright-eyed little boy with a head of dark curls and a rosebud mouth. But he was thirteen now, prickly and prideful about his dignity, and she turned her face back to the motorway and drove on.

The sun was setting, streaking the pale sky with pink and orange. They’d be at the house in less than fifteen minutes. Violet longed for another cigarette. “What do you want to do?”

Sherlock turned to her, startled. “What do you mean?”

“I’m asking how you’d like to proceed with all this. Do you want to return to Eton?”

“No,” Sherlock said, but cautiously, as if he expected the rug to be pulled from under his feet. “But Father –“

“Never mind Father. I’m asking _you_ what you want to do.”

Sherlock considered the question. After a moment, he shook his head. “I don’t want to go back.”

“It’ll just mean another public school, darling. I’m not sure the next one will be so different.” She reached out tentatively and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. “I know it’s not particularly easy to be…to fit in when you’re….” _Extraordinary_ , she wanted to say. Her lovely, brilliant, sharp-tongued, extraordinary son. “Unusual,” she finished.

For a time, Sherlock didn’t speak. He seemed to be mulling over her words, and in the unspoken understanding that Violet fancied she shared with him at odd times, she felt him coming to the realisation that she’d paid him a compliment of the highest order. He wasn’t a mere child any longer. He was the captain of his own fate. And if that hurt her more deeply than she could possibly acknowledge, she’d never own it. She had her pride too.

Shyly, Sherlock leant forward and kissed Violet’s cheek. “Thank you, Mummy.” He settled back in his seat and turned to the window again.

Violet Holmes bit her lower lip, then permitted herself a smile.

 

*


	2. Nineteen

*

 

The radio, a heavy brown Bakelite model purloined from his grandmother’s house (she’d been deaf as a post for years anyway), sent out a scratchy, tinny noise, making Pablo Casals’ unaccompanied cello rendering of a Bach piece sound as if he were playing inside a rubbish skip, but it was comfortable and familiar and _almost_ drowned out the racket Seb Wilkes was making outside his door.

“Sherlock!”

_Shut up, Seb, and go away. I’m busy._

An insistent pounding thudded in unconscious rhythm to the music. “Come on, Holmes! I know you’re in there! I see your bloody light!”

Sherlock frowned behind his goggles. _God, bugger off!_ He lifted the dropper, aimed, and released a single drop of solution onto the subject below.

“If you don’t open the god-damned door, Holmes, I’m coming in. You’d better not be having a wank in there.”

“Not the way you’d think,” Sherlock murmured, and heaved a sigh as the door handle turned. He refused to look up; acknowledging Sebastian Wilkes’ histrionic entrances was tantamount to admiring them – to Seb, anyway. He lifted his goggles and examined the flesh beneath him. A yellowish stain, a faint burn. He clicked his tongue, disappointed, and replaced his goggles.

“Christ, Holmes, I’ve been knocking for an hour. Are you deaf?”

“No.”

“Right. Ignoring me again. Thanks, awfully kind of you.” Seb wandered into the room and let out a groan. “God, doesn’t it _pong_ in here. At least open a window. What the hell are you doing?”

“What the hell does it look like I’m doing?”

“That’s our boy, ever quick with the repartee.” Seb playfully ruffled Sherlock’s hair, looked down, and emitted a strangled shriek. “Jesus _Christ_!”

“Not even close,” Sherlock murmured, filling a syringe.

“Is that…good God almighty, Sherlock, is that a baby? Is it?”

Sherlock carefully depressed the plunger, and only when he’d removed the needle from the flesh did he look up at Sebastian, whose green face didn’t suit his white tie and tails in the least. “For God’s sake, have you never clapped eyes on a foetal pig before?”

“No,” Seb replied in a strangled voice. His fingers fumbled at the starched wing collar at his throat.

“Where did you go to school before this, Seb? Oh, don’t tell me – was it one of those progressive places with a no-dissection policy and earnest felt banners everywhere? Some place where you called all the instructors by their first names and got A-levels in yurt building?”

“Oh, shut up!”

“Thought so.” That did go a long way toward explaining Seb’s painful need to fit in with his peers, as well as his apparent distaste for the macrobiotic selections in the dining hall. Sherlock turned back to the pig, carefully pinned out on the board. “It’s obviously a baby, but it’s also a _baby_ , if you follow. Never mind, don’t bother. You remember a month or so ago, that woman in Sheffield who was arrested for murdering her child?”

“No.”

“No. Why would you?” Sherlock sighed. “Well, the police claimed she knocked the child unconscious and then stuffed it into a bin liner and filled it with drain cleaner and then skipped town. But I don’t think that the flesh rendered as quickly as the police claim. There’s something they’re missing. Someone else killed the child.” Sherlock picked up his scalpel, sliced away a thin sample of skin, and arranged it on a slide. “Someone who knew exactly how long it would take to burn a body to almost nothing with sodium hydroxide.”

“God, that’s fucking grim, Holmes.”

“Well. _Yes_ , Seb, it is. Obviously.”

“So why are you trying to work all that out? And why, for fuck’s sake, aren’t you doing it in the lab where disgusting things like foetal pigs belong?”

“I’m curious, that’s all. And Barrington gets shirty when I work on my own,” Sherlock muttered, and stared up at Seb. “Was there something you wanted? And why are you all rigged up like that?”

“Let me guess. You’re not going to the masquerade tonight.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on, Sherlock. You should give it a go. They’ll have masks there – just throw your tails on and come with us.” Seb hesitated. “You don’t _have_ to bring a date, you know.”

“Why didn’t you say so? Quick, get my wig and heels from the wardrobe.” Sherlock turned on his microscope. “Really, Seb, I’m sort of busy, so if you wanted something, out with it, and then just get out.”

Seb crossed his arms and gazed down at Sherlock, looking like something graceful out of _Brideshead Revisited_. Which was fine – Sebastian Wilkes was stupid, just another sheep in the Uni pack, and only too eye-battingly aware of his own beauty, but he was essentially harmless and decent. “You don’t have to be such a prick, you know.” His tone was kind and resonated with an odd sort of sympathy; it travelled down Sherlock’s spine like the thin point of a stiletto.

“Evidently I do, if you’re going to come barging in uninvited and then hang about criticising me.”

“Fine.” Seb sighed. “You’ve got an opera cloak, haven’t you?”

“Yes. How do you know that?”

“I saw you wearing it last year the night the heat went out.”

Sherlock sniffed. “Surprised you’d notice a thing like that.”

Twin spots of pink bloomed on Sebastian’s cheeks. He opened and closed his mouth like a beached fish. “Well – Jesus, Sherlock, it’s hard _not_ to notice a tall, gangly berk like you swooping around in a fucking Dracula cape.”

“You’re all red in the face.” Sherlock squinted at Seb, then shook his head and went about arranging his slide. “I presume you want to borrow it for the masquerade.”

“Yeah, that’d be brilliant, if you don’t mind. I’m going to be Dracula.” Seb pronounced the name with a terrible mock-Romanian accent.

“I suppose not. Just make sure you bring it back, and don’t soak it in beer, for God’s sake.” Sherlock pulled off his goggles and leant close to the scope. “What are you gawping at? I told you, it’s a pig, not a human infant.”

“Right. Right.” Sebastian coughed. “So. Where is it?”

Sherlock tilted his head slightly to the right. “In the chest. Bit squeamish for a vampire, aren’t you?”

“Well, you know, all sorts of nasty diseases out there nowadays. Even Vlad the Impaler can’t be too careful.” Seb went to the blanket chest at the foot of Sherlock’s bed and heaved off a pile of folded clothes, a stack of monographs, a massive chunk of Newcastle coal, a Book of Common Prayer (serial killing in Berkshire, pages ripped out, but certainly not at random), a scimitar (sharp – woe betide Seb’s hand if he were careless) and the newspaper articles on the Sheffield murder. He opened the chest and rummaged around. “Where?”

“Garment bag.”

Seb withdrew an ancient Hartnell garment bag that had once held one of his mother’s ballgowns and unzipped it. “Ah, there we are.” He drew the cloak from the bag, draped the silk-lined wool over his shoulders, and admired himself in the mirror on the back of Sherlock’s door. “God, that’s perfect, Holmes. Thanks.”

“It’s a bit moth-eaten, but have at it.”

“Thanks awfully. I’ll get it back to you tomorrow.”

“No hurry.”

Seb opened Sherlock’s door and hovered on the threshold. “You sure you won’t come? It’ll be a good time. Good music, dancing, plenty of liquor and lovelies.”

Sherlock bit back a sigh. He liked Seb well enough, but the concerned uncle bit was beginning to wear on him. He made a herculean effort and offered Seb an approximation of a friendly smile. “No, but thanks all the same. Have a good time.”

“Righto –“

“Did you get it?” a masculine voice boomed, and Sherlock was treated – if that was the word, which it almost certainly wasn’t – to the sight of Charles Adrian Kirkland, Kim to his friends and foes alike, in a caveman’s costume, complete with draped faux tiger skin, ratty wig, and club. Kim had been Sherlock’s lab partner at the beginning of the term, and had requested a change because he couldn’t keep up. No surprises there. He had a girl on each arm – one dressed as a French maid, the other as a “sexy” policewoman. Behind him was one of his rugby teammates, Ned Carson-Mathers, another troglodyte, but dressed as a Wild West cowboy. Good God, they’d really plumbed the depths of their imaginations, hadn’t they?

Sherlock flicked a glance at Kim’s costume. “Apropos,” he murmured.

“Yeah, I got it. Well, thanks, Sherlock –“

“Christ, what’s that niff? That you, Holmes?”

Sherlock didn’t answer. He bent his head to the microscope and studied the burned flesh on the slide. Decided rapid corrosion. It would have taken a few bottles of drain cleaner – the stuff was diluted, not pure lye – and more time to destroy the child’s body, and the mother had only been out of town overnight…something wasn’t right….

“You’re a rude wanker, you know that?”

Kim’s voice was right next to his ear, almost deafening; Sherlock had been concentrating so hard he hadn’t heard him approach. Sherlock rubbed his ear. “No, I didn’t need that tympanic membrane, but thanks for your thoughtfulness.” He glared at Kim, at Carson-Mathers, at the two overly eyeshadowed and lipsticked girls with them. “I’m sorry, is the masquerade meant to take place in my room, or did I miss something?”

Seb tugged on Kim’s arm. “Come on, Kim, let’s go.”

“Can’t get enough gore, can you, Holmes?” Kim stared down his nose at Sherlock, beyond absurd in his straggly wig. “God, you are one sick puppy.” He reached out with one thick-fingered hand and tweaked Sherlock’s ear.

“All right, Kim, that’s enough,” Seb said. “Come on. I’ve got loads of blanc de blanc in the car. Let’s go get really stupid.”

“Oh, I think he might be way ahead of you there, Seb,” Sherlock said.

“You’re an arsehole, Holmes.”

“Maybe,” Sherlock said, looking Kim up and down. “Could be worse. Could be a rapist.”

“God, Sherlock!” cried one of the girls – Tabitha Franklyn, Sherlock realised, almost unrecognisable underneath the French maid outfit and layers of paint.

“Whoa!” Seb said, laughing nervously. “Okay, okay. Come on, boys –“

“Did you just call me a rapist?” Kim asked, tilting his head to one side with an air of innocent inquiry. “Are you serious, Holmes? You’d better be joking, because that’s a really nasty accusation.” He smiled, as if to say that Sherlock could take it back and they’d all be pals again.

Sherlock leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. He surveyed the girls flanking Kim, noting that they seemed to be ever so slightly watchful now. “Clever girls. They don’t quite trust you, do they?”

“Well, come on, Sherlock,” Seb said. “You can’t just go round calling people rapists.”

“I can if they are,” Sherlock said, still watching the girls. “Careful what you drink tonight. Get your own drinks, no matter how chivalrous he is. He’s whipped up a batch of chloral hydrate and he’s just dying to use it. He could probably wheedle at least one of you into bed, with enough alcohol, but that wouldn’t be the same sort of thrill, would it, Kim? ‘Course not. God, if you could see your pupils dilating. Could be anger, but it isn’t, it’s arousal. You’ve been thinking about it all day, haven’t you? Drugging someone into unconsciousness and then having sex with them – that really floats your boat, doesn’t it? Doesn’t even matter who it is, as long as she’s out cold.”

Kim smiled again, and this time his smile was not quite so friendly. “I think I’ve heard enough of this horseshit.”

“Come on, I haven’t even got started. You didn’t make it yourself, did you? You paid someone and helped out a bit. Tremaine, right? Lab partner, awfully convenient, gives you all the answers come examination time, thoroughly cowed by your brutality. You’ve got red eyes – you’ve rubbed at them, a bit of chemical stinging from the chlorine gas because you’re too stupid to wear eye protection. You’ve got a brand-new burn on the wrist of your dominant hand. A little impatient with the hot beaker, maybe you were thinking about what it would feel like to have sex with someone without their consent. First time using chemicals – it’s always been alcohol with you, signs of dehydration in your skin already, but now you’ve hit the big time and you’re excited. Distinct chemical smell on your skin because God forbid you should bother to wash up after handling lab materials. And a little smudge of pink chalk on your hand. They only use that sort of chalk in the chemistry lab, so really, Kim, how much is truth and how much is horseshit? What do you think, Tabitha?”

Tabitha had backed away from Kim and was looking from him to Sherlock as if they were engaged in a rousing game of tennis. “I think – Sherlock, you wouldn’t lie about a thing like that, would you? You can be awfully…stroppy, sometimes.” She glanced at Kim, who was nearly purple, but wore a thin little smile, ever so slightly different from the others. “You wouldn’t just say that to be mean-spirited?”

Sherlock forced himself to speak kindly. “Tabitha, look at him. Fists clenched, face plum-coloured, eyes narrowed, teeth grinding. He’s a controller, and you probably know it better than he does. Watch him when you’re out with him, listen to him talk. He poisons the atmosphere because he can’t possibly understand or admire that anyone might be better-looking than he is, or brighter, or more socially connected, or whatever. He won’t praise you because he can’t bear to build anyone up – he’s got to suppress, to smother, and you probably won’t admit that he’s a boring sod because he’s a rugger captain and therefore glamorous, but I promise you that when the glow wears off, he’s a mediocre, drivelly, good-for-nothing prat who would rather rape a girl than charm her.”

“That’s rather bold talk from a swotty antisocial creep like you, Holmes.” Kim was clasping his hands together in a pose of assumed patience. “When was the last time you had a date? For that matter, have you ever _had_ sex? Do you even know where it’s supposed to go?”

“In a conscious partner, so far as I understand.” Sherlock bent to his microscope once more. “Now if you don’t mind, my pig’s drying out.”

“God, you’re disgusting.” Kim moved to take Tabitha’s arm, but she pulled away.

“No. I’ll go with Seb.”

“Well, we’re all going together.”

“Not me,” said the other girl. She was near tears. “I’m going home.”

“Yeah…I think we’ll both sit this one out.” Tabitha glanced uneasily at Sherlock, then took the other girl’s arm. “Come on, Caroline, let’s go.” She looked at Seb. “Seb, will you drive us?”

Sebastian wore the unhappy expression of a man realising he’d just walked into quicksand. “Yeah, okay. I’ll, er…I’ll catch up with you lot later,” he said to Kim and Carson-Mathers, and dashed out after the girls.

“Smart girls,” Sherlock said quietly, and adjusted a lens. “Are you still here?” he asked the caveman and the cowboy. Idiots. He was bored almost senseless. And he’d missed the burning of subdermal tissue, God damn it all.

“We’re leaving,” Kim said. “Watch your arse, Holmes. Watch it very carefully.” 

Sherlock waited until the door had closed quietly, but with a firmness that underscored the thrumming tension in Kim’s hand. He stared at the closed door. Kim’s silence had proved that Sherlock hadn’t been wrong, and Kim wasn’t bright enough or eloquent enough to deny the observations that Sherlock had made. 

He got up, went to the door, and locked it.

 

*

 

Sherlock stared down at his plate in frank disgust. They might have called it dinner, but it wasn’t fit for dog meat. He pushed it aside and opened the Sheffield paper. The police had called in the accused woman’s boyfriend. _Nice try, but I don’t think so._

“Sherlock?”

He looked up. “Seb.”

“Hey. I meant to get the cloak back to you – sorry about that.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Did you go to the party?”

“Yeah, the three of us actually wound up going. Had a great time. Look, Sherlock…you really shouldn’t have said that about Kim. That was just – it was speculation, right? I mean, you can’t tell all that about someone just by looking at him.”

Sherlock appraised Seb coolly, seeing blonde hairs on his jacket, traces of Lancôme Blush Satin on his shirt collar, and smelling something distinctly feminine – YSL Paris, unless he missed his guess. “I can tell you don’t have to rape people to have sex with them.”

Seb’s cheeks reddened. “ _God_ , Sherlock.”

“Look, he’s a bastard, and you did those girls a tremendous service. Well done.” Sherlock went back to his paper.

“Sherlock,” Seb said pleadingly, “just…be careful, all right?”

“You worry too much, Seb.” Sherlock took a swallow of cold tea and grimaced. “Good Christ, do they have anything here that doesn’t taste as if it’s been fermented at the bottom of a cistern?”

Seb shook his head. “See you later, Sherlock.”

Sherlock pushed aside his tea as well, wishing he’d opted for something simple, like hot tea and beans on toast, but he didn’t feel like eating any longer. He got up, gathered his things, and headed for the pool. He’d been feeling tense and upset lately ( _not_ because of bloody Kim Kirkland, damn it all) and reckoned that a little physical exercise wouldn’t kill him. He’d swim a few dozen laps, then float lazily a bit. It was pleasant to relax in the water, and he’d always liked the chlorine smell and echoing sounds of the vast tiled room.

He yawned as he trudged toward the gymnasium and huddled into his coat. Maybe it was the shortening days, but he yearned for sleep. Too many late nights recently – he supposed he had to succumb at some point. The swim would tire him nicely, and he’d be asleep by one at the latest. Five hours was more than enough – indulgent, actually.

The pool was closed, but that didn’t present a problem; he picked the lock (not quite as deftly as usual – had they changed the style? No, it was the same) and slipped into the changing room before anyone saw him. It was too late for the lifeguards, too early for the janitorial staff. Perfect. 

Sherlock toed off his trainers and unbuttoned his jeans, faintly amazed that his fingers seemed to stumble over the fastenings. He pushed them down his thighs, shivering a little in the chilly air, and suddenly found himself dying to simply lie on the bench and sleep. He pulled off his jumper and unbuttoned his shirt clumsily, yawning to clear his head, and found himself so exhausted that he had to drop to the bench.

_Dizzy. Maybe not the most brilliant idea to swim alone._

Rubbish. He was a strong swimmer, and if he got too tired he’d simply climb out of the pool. He’d do twenty laps at most.

Slowly, he pushed his boxers off, stripped off his socks, and got into his speedos. He stood, leaving his clothes scattered on the floor, and walked across the tile floor, using the even pattern of squares to balance himself.

_All right. Twelve laps._

He heard a soft scrape and a swish, as if the door to the pool had opened. _Oh, God._ He was tired of explaining himself to the security guards. Why didn’t they keep the damned pool open all day long? “Is that the cleaning crew?” he called softly, hoping it was and not Security. 

Sherlock fumbled for the light, but something weighty like a canvas coat was yanked down over his head, and someone pinned his arms tightly. He gasped, and felt a fist crash into his midsection.

 

*

 

Seb had bitten his thumbnail into a bloody, ragged mess before he saw a sniggering Kim and Ned leave the gymnasium after half an hour of stillness and silence. Concealed in a hedgerow gap, he waited another fifteen minutes, terrified they might have seen him follow them, terrified they might come back, hoping Sherlock would emerge from the gym looking irritated, walking at his usual break-neck pace, hair wet because all he’d done was to go for a late swim and stupid Kim and Ned hadn’t bothered him at all –

_You berk. They didn’t go in there to watch him swim._

Seb got his feet moving, hurried toward the steps, looking over his shoulder, shuddering with fear and anxiety. The warm, chlorinated air hit him as soon as he stepped inside. “Sherlock?” he called softly. “Holmes?”

It was dark, and silent, and terrifying. _Sherlock, you fucking idiot._ Seb stalked through the corridor to the pool, the upper level where spectators watched meets. There was a lone work light on, and the pool glowed a mellow blue, the chlorine smell strong in Seb’s nostrils. He scanned the surface; the water was calm, untouched. Taking the stairs in threes, he ran to the first level and trotted the length of the pool. Nobody beneath the surface either (please, God – no, empty. Thank Christ) and pushed his way into the men’s changing room.

“Holmes? You in here?”

He threaded his way through the rows of lockers. There were Sherlock’s clothes scattered on the floor: jeans, shirt, jumper, socks, trainers, underwear. There was his backpack, undisturbed, his coat draped over the bench.

“Sherlock?”

Seb crept along the rows of lockers, stopping dead as he saw a huddled form beside one of the shower stalls.

“Sherlock? Oh, Jesus –“ Seb rushed to Sherlock and turned him over, staring into the still face. Sherlock’s lips were like marble, his eyes closed. His hair and body were dripping, and Seb let his gaze, for one infinitesimal second, travel the length of Sherlock’s lanky figure, stopping (not really, just – pausing) at the brief swimsuit that clung to him wetly. “Sherlock?” Seb gathered him close and gently struck his cheek. “Wake up, for God’s sake.” He saw Sherlock’s eyes moving below the closed lids. “Oh, God, Holmes, wake up.” He grabbed one of Sherlock’s hands and started to chafe it. “Come on, you stupid bastard –“ 

Sherlock groaned. His eyes opened; he squinted. “Seb?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me. What the hell happened?” _Fantastic. Excellent question, I’m sure he’s in just the right mood to answer that, never mind perfect physical condition. Probably concussed, and if he dies here I’m going to have to spill everything. Fuck._ And, Seb realised, he had a stiff prick, and Sherlock’s head was in his lap, centimetres from discovering something hideously embarrassing. Life could not possibly have become more inconvenient. _I don’t want to fuck him, it’s just – oh, Christ._

Sherlock had closed his eyes again.

“Fuck’s sake, Sherlock. Talk to me.”

“Stop doing that to my hand.”

Seb let go of Sherlock’s hand, searched for a place to put his own hand down, and found it on the flat of Sherlock’s belly. It was chilly, the skin a bit pebbled, the hair below his navel in damp curls. _Fuck._ He snatched his hand away as if it had been burned. “Sorry.”

“You were right,” Sherlock muttered.

“What?”

“About Kim.”

“I’m sorry. Sherlock, we’ve got to get you to hospital right away. You’ve got a concussion.”

“No.”

“Yes, absolutely. I’m going to go find a phone.”

“It’s not concussion,” Sherlock muttered. “Drugged.”

“Wh –“ Seb gaped. Drugged – oh, God. Of course. Bloody Kim and his homemade chloral hydrate. “How?”

“Tea. I guess. I don’t know for sure. Just enough to make me slow.” Sherlock shifted, and for the first time Seb saw bruising on his abdomen, his thighs. A cold fear gripped him.

“Sherlock, they didn’t –“ He found himself unable to continue.

“Hm?”

“They didn’t…try anything….”

“Oh. No.” Sherlock’s eyes fluttered open and fixed on Seb’s. “Nothing like that. Nice friends of yours though, Seb.” His eyes closed again. “So tired. Doesn’t even hurt much.”

“Sherlock, you can’t sleep here.” _Your mouth’s way too close to my cock._

“Why not? Comfortable.”

“You’re going to freeze to death on the floor, for one thing.”

“Who cares.” Sherlock turned to his side and opened his eyes. 

Seb closed his. 

“Oh.”

“Sherlock –“

“Seb…look, if that’s for me, I’m flattered, but –“

“No!” Seb scrambled up, half-dragging Sherlock with him. “Look, I’m going to get your clothes so we can get out of here and get you to the infirmary. If the janitors find us, we’re fucked.” He leaned Sherlock against the wall, letting his eyes flick over the wet speedos. His cock aching, he retrieved Sherlock’s clothing, burying his nose in the grey jumper. He’d never been so horny in his life. _I don’t want to fuck him. It’s just – oh, God damn it anyway._

Fucking Sherlock Holmes.

 

*

 

Seb returned the cloak a few days later. Sherlock, absorbed in a book, accepted it with murmured thanks and little more. Seb withdrew, curiously hurt, and by the end of the term he and Sherlock were scarcely more than nodding acquaintances. Kim and Ned both failed the term and were expelled.

A few years later, Sebastian got married, and on impulse, invited Sherlock. He didn’t expect him to show, but he did – wearing the opera cloak. Seb thought he might have seen a twinkle in Sherlock’s eye, but maybe it was just the champagne.

 

*


	3. Twenty-two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Simon Williamson is property of Irvine Welsh.

3\. Twenty-two

*

Not even the most smack-addled junkie wandering in off the street, desperate for a fix, could fail to notice that Simon was the smallest of small-time dealers. His flat (practically a bedsit, two grotty rooms and a toilet Sherlock wouldn’t have used if there was a gun to his head) was warmed by a three-bar electric heater, the lights were dreary fluorescents, the floor showed layer upon layer of cracked lino in assorted patterns like a vacillating snake shedding different-coloured layers of skin, and the whole was furnished with cheap, nasty-smelling charity-shop furniture covered with mysterious stains. Interestingly, Simon himself tended to favour intense and expensive personal grooming: expensive haircut, bleach, hot oil treatment to keep the ends smooth, weekly barber shave, occasional facial, and a manicure. Comme des Garcons suit, likely nicked but handsome nevertheless, shirt by same, tie courtesy of Paul Smith, shoes by Cerruti (also nicked – a half-size too large for Simon’s feet, so the shoes must have been lying in their box on the floor, rejected by a previous customer. Easy enough to switch out whilst the salesperson attended to someone else). Omega watch (fake, sweep second hand tended to skip a bit – sorry, Simon), Floris No. 89 cologne (nicked as well – tester bottle, still quite full, a bit aged owing to its current unfashionable status; Simon must have chosen it for sentimental reasons of some sort. Not to worry, Simon, it’ll come back soon enough). The only explanation for Simon’s careful attention to his grooming must have been purest vanity, as he clearly didn’t give a damn what his flat looked like, and unlike other dealers, didn’t have a flashy car, a badge of honour for most and certainly an extension of their vapid, moronic personalities. If Simon came to meet you, he came on the tube. That pleased Sherlock obscurely; maybe it was just knowing his overhead was a bit lower. A penny saved was a penny earned, after all.

“Sherlock.” Simon’s customary soft Scots burr had flattened a bit. “Been a while.”

“I didn’t realise you’d missed me. I’d have come much sooner.”

“You _were_ meant to come sooner.” Simon opened the door wider to let Sherlock in. “Sunday night, remember? At any rate, you’re here now – thanks for showing up.” He nodded toward a thin ginger-haired young man sleeping (no, not asleep – unconscious, succumbed to the dark oblivion of heroin) on a filthy lilo. “My mate Mark.”

“Right.” Sherlock clasped his hands behind his back and surveyed the flat. Nothing had changed; it was as disgusting as ever. “So. What have you got?”

Simon shrugged. “The lot. Acid, E, speed, mushies, smack, dope, nembies –“

“I’m not interested in any of that,” Sherlock snapped. He’d been itchy and irritable for days (seemed like weeks, seemed like aeons). He’d tried to stay away, but the more he’d tried the more the roar of stillness and ordinary tedium inside his head had become knives slicing into his brain and the line between potential and kinetic energy had blurred, leaving him a trembling, cramping wreck, and just lately his mind had turned in on itself, a frantic termite chewing its way through a poisoned sequoia, round and round in a self-created labyrinth with no exit, and he hadn’t slept in days and he needed a god-damned fix, he needed it _now_ and he didn’t in the bloody least appreciate Simon’s ham-handed attempt at wit since Sherlock never varied in his choices and Simon knew it better than most.

“Ah. A little Bolivian marching powder, yeah?”

“Call it what you will.” Sherlock clenched his hands together tightly. “And I’d prefer it from your personal stash, not the stepped-on rubbish you sell to everyone else.”

“That’s the spirit, Sherlock. You always do appreciate quality. I like that about you, honestly I do. But we’ve got a wee matter of accounting to settle first.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Sherlock jammed his hands in his pockets. Some movement caught his peripheral vision – a rat? God, this place was foul. He’d almost feel ashamed of himself for coming here if the cravings weren’t so intense, if his sleep hadn’t been broken by nightmares of nameless horrors shambling after him as he tried to run and failed, falling again and again until they descended upon him and he’d wake up in a clinging film of sweat, a scream locked in his throat. “Look, I’d have come Sunday night as promised, but I went to my bank and my…my account was a bit short.”

Simon lowered himself to a sagging green sofa and crossed one knee elegantly over the other. He had a handsome face, a witty, tilted nose, and wide, limpid dark grey-green eyes that regarded Sherlock with weary patience. “A bit short, you say.”

“Yes,” Sherlock spat between clenched teeth. Simon was prolonging his discomfort deliberately, he knew it. “Look, not that it’s any of your business, but every quarter there’s a certain amount deposited into my account, and for some reason, it hasn’t been deposited yet. I went to the bank to ask them about it, but they’re a crew of complete and utter idiots, the lot of them, and they wouldn’t tell me a bloody thing. So you’re just going to have to wait for your money, Simon, but in the meantime I’d certainly appreciate it if you were to extend me just a little credit, considering I’ve been a most exemplary customer for quite some time now.” He glared down at Simon, aware that he’d raised his voice, but he didn’t care; his spine, his brain, his entire nervous system had been flooded with imperatives, his head pounded, and his jaw ached from clenching his teeth together, and all that mattered right now was the bright sting of the needle that delivered release from the tremors and chills, the sickening need that held him so firmly in its grip.

And he didn’t _know_ why the money hadn’t been deposited. He’d tried to phone his mother, but the answering service had informed him that she’d gone to Majorca. She’d have told him if there were changes to the dispensation of his trust. Surely she’d have told him. He’d tried Mr. Garland, their solicitor, but Garland hadn’t returned his call. Not surprising. The man was approximately three hundred and fifty years old and had the brain capacity of an injured box turtle. Mycroft might know what had happened, but Sherlock would be damned if he’d expose even the smallest part of soft white underbelly to his brother’s tender mercies. Simon would simply have to whistle for the money until he got hold of it. What was so god-damned difficult to understand?

“That sort of thing happens,” Simon replied easily. “More often than you’d think. Things are tough all over.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear it.”

“Glad?” Simon smiled a bit, but the smile failed to reach his eyes. “Thing is, Sherlock, you owe me almost a grand, and I’ve got operating costs. Otherwise I might be willing to extend just a wee bit of credit. As it is….” He shook his head sadly. “I can’t afford to let you run a tab. You understand.”

“Oh, come off it. A thousand pounds is _nothing_ , Simon, and you know it almost as well as I do.”

“If it’s nothing, then why haven’t I got it?” Simon held out his hand, palm turned upward.

“I just told you. I don’t know why, for God’s sake.”

Simon shook his head and went to the door of the rat-hole that served as his bedroom. “Well. We have a bit of a problem, then.”

“Oh, _bloody_ hell,” Sherlock groaned, scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Simon, I can’t keep going round and round with you about this. You’ve never been unreasonable before.”

“You’ve never owed me a grand before, mate. And there’s interest now as you haven’t been bothered to pay for a few weeks, so I reckon the final bill comes to about thirteen hundred.” Simon rested his hand on the doorknob.

“Thirteen hundred!” Sherlock barked a disdainful laugh. “I don’t think so… _mate._ ”

“Thought you might say that,” Simon replied in a sorrowful tone, and opened the door. Three men stepped out, hulking figures in motorbike leathers. “Lads, this is Sherlock Holmes.”

“Oh, I see. This is some sort of intimidation technique, I suppose.” Sherlock began to back toward the door, but before he’d reached it, two of the men closed in on him, grabbing him by the arms and manhandling him toward Simon. He squirmed, trying to wrench himself free, but the bikers were strong and – a bit frightening, this – silent. “Let me go. Take your fucking hands off me!” Sherlock aimed an icy glare at Simon. “Tell them to let me go.”

“The money first,” Simon said with maddening patience.

“I haven’t bloody got any! Check my pockets, for Christ’s sake.”

Simon nodded, and the third man not holding Sherlock made a fist and swung. Sherlock let out an undignified whoop of air and doubled over as much as he could. Coughing and gasping, he struggled to breathe, and felt Simon’s hand patting his hair. “Come on now, Sherlock. I know you’ve got loads of money. It’s just a matter of getting it to us. Shall I have the lads accompany you to your flat?”

Still coughing, Sherlock shook his head. Apparently Simon’s overhead covered other expenses, hired thugs among them. “I haven’t got any at the flat. And I told you I haven’t got any in my account.”

A brief sigh escaped Simon’s lips. “Again.”

The fist drove into Sherlock’s belly again; again Sherlock bent over, winded and wheezing with pain.

“I’m tired of going round and round too,” Simon murmured. “Come on, Sherlock. Money.”

“I told you –“ The fist crashed into his chest this time. Sherlock’s feet went out from under him. He twisted and gasped in the bikers’ grip. He couldn’t break free, and he’d have shouted for help except that considering the screams he’d sometimes heard from this block of flats, one more desperate cry, even if he could have raised his voice above a moan, would have been as equally pointless as all the rest. “I’ve – I’ve got some good things, silver and crystal things….” Oh, God, to be reduced to bargaining with family possessions, but he didn’t see anything else for it. 

“Sorry. Not a pawn shop, Sherlock.”

They weren’t going to let him go, and with the mindlessness of the automatons that they were, they’d just keep beating him until he produced the desired cash. Where the hell did they think he’d hidden it – up his arse?

 _Better not say that_ , some still-lucid and grimly amused portion of his mind advised. _They might go looking for it._ The fist – like iron, the biker was wearing rings that managed to approximate brass knuckles with a fair degree of accuracy – slammed into his midsection once more, and Sherlock cried out in pain.

“I hate to do this, Sherlock.” Simon sounded genuinely regretful. “You really are a good customer. But you understand. Can’t have my customers thinking that they can get a free ride.”

“Go to hell,” Sherlock croaked, and the fist hit him again. A blinding surge of pain flashed hot and bright in his chest, orange and red against the dull pale-yellow throb in his belly. He was afraid he was going to throw up. _Back up, Simon, I’m about to ruin your nice shoes._ He’d aim right for the damned things if he did vomit.

“You’re a trust fund baby,” Simon said. “Must be someone you can call.”

There was, but he wasn’t going to do it. 

“Sherlock,” Simon said wearily, “if you don’t help me out, I’m going to have the lads here hold a cigarette lighter to the soles of your feet. It’s going to hurt like mad. Be reasonable now.”

“Fuck you.”

“Take his shoes off.”

“No –“ Despite the pain, Sherlock fought frantically to get free, but it did him no good at all. They pulled off his trainers and socks and wrestled him down to the ground. One of the bikers held his upper body and pinned his wrists together, another sat on his legs, half-crushing him, and the third took out a lighter emblazoned with an iron cross and flicked it open. “You wouldn’t dare,” he panted. “And if you do, I swear to God I’ll –“

“Shut it,” the biker holding his wrists said, and dug the hard, callused fingers of his free hand into Sherlock’s cheeks.

The lighter drew close to Sherlock’s naked foot. Mesmerised, he stopped struggling and watched the flickering orange-and-blue flame until the flame disappeared, held beneath bare, vulnerable flesh. 

Once, when he was five, he’d dragged a chair to the Aga, turned it on, and held a piece of bread over the flame, waiting for it to toast. He’d got too close and burned his hand badly enough to require a visit to their doctor. He remembered screaming loudly and his mother and Mycroft running to him, clasping him close, running cold water over his hand, but he couldn’t remember the pain of the burn. _Pain is transient_ , a coldly clinical slice of his brain reminded him, momentarily eclipsing his panic and the craving that still ate at his nerves. _Useful to remember it for later._ Given enough time, he could go into a sort of self-hypnosis, transcend the pain. He was smarter than all four men in the room combined – five, if you counted the still-unconscious ginger in the corner. There was a way out of this.

The flame touched his skin. There was heat, discomfort.

And then there was agony.

After what seemed hours (weeks, aeons) of hoarse, prolonged shrieks that rendered his throat to raw shreds, he told them, through choked sobs, whom to call.

*

“Very well. Expect me in one hour.”

Mycroft replaced the telephone in its receiver and stared at it for a moment. He massaged his temples with his fingertips, conscious of a headache that had blossomed during the brief conversation. If he were entirely honest with himself, he had been expecting this moment for some time; therefore, he was not altogether unprepared, though what he was about to do exceeded the boundaries of his demesne and almost certainly the approval of his higher-ups, shadowy and indistinct as they were. Still, there was a time to sit prudently by, and a time to take advantage of one’s authority, and what was this but one of those times? Family was important; surely his superiors would understand.

He was rather surprised to discover that he didn’t care if they did or not. There was a decided pleasure to be found in a gamble.

*

The car stopped in a section of London Mycroft had never visited before and hoped to never see again. It was no better than a slum: brick tenements slouching together, windows denuded of glass gaping like empty eye-sockets, gated and chained storefronts obscured beneath layers of graffiti, rubbish littering the street, furtive, hunched figures travelling in packs, prostitutes and drug vendors plying their distasteful trades to the foolish, the unwary. A smell of foreign cooking and the steady thump of some irritating music filtered through the closed window. Mycroft sighed.

The man in the front passenger seat, a young, square-jawed man in his mid-twenties, turned and addressed Mycroft respectfully. “We’re here, sir.”

“Yes, I gathered. All right, let’s go.” 

The men in the front seat got out of the car, and the driver opened the door for Mycroft. They waited for the men who’d been in the car behind them to join, flanking him as the group moved toward the door. People had stopped to stare, though not for long; Mycroft’s men had a trick of putting menace into their faces, young as they were, and the hustlers and pimps backed away, perhaps sensing beneath the layers of pharmaceutically-induced and natural stupidity that trouble was afoot. Mycroft ignored them and waited for one of his companions to open the building door. There was no lock, no buzzer to override – a small favour, but appreciated.

They trudged up two flights of stairs – no lift, naturally – and Mycroft pointed down the hall. “Two hundred fourteen,” he said softly. The men with him nodded, pulled their knitted caps down, revealing balaclavas, and drew their weapons. They moved toward the door, two in front of Mycroft, two behind, and knocked.

As the door opened, revealing a young man with bleached hair and a smarmy, falsely ingratiating smile, all four SAS men pointed their weapons at his face.

“Holy fuck –“ The young man tried to shut the door, but one of the SAS men kicked it open and collared him. The others spread out in the tiny flat, covering four leather-clad gentlemen who seemed very surprised indeed, and a young, exceedingly pale man curled up on a dirty lilo and blinking at them in confusion.

Mycroft looked around the sordid room, wincing in disgust, but didn’t see Sherlock. “Secure them, please,” he said, indicating the leather-clad gentlemen. The leather-clad men, prudent sorts evidently, held up their hands at once; two of the SAS hauled them into a corner and bound their hands and feet with cable ties. The other two glanced questioningly at the young man with bleached hair and the man on the lilo, but Mycroft shook his head. He walked over to the man, on his knees now and looking rather uncomfortable with the barrel of a Browning lodged against his temple, and clasped his hands behind his back. “Are you Simon?”

Amazingly, the young man managed a smile. “That’s me. Simon Williamson. You must be Mycroft. Sherlock didn’t tell me you’d be bringing a fucking army. He’s a clever one.”

Mycroft chose not to answer, instead lifting his head to survey the flat. There were two doors, both closed. “I presume Sherlock is behind one of those doors.”

“Aye, the loo.”

A deep sigh escaped Mycroft’s chest. “I detest guessing games, Mr. Williamson, so do please tell me which door that is, and _do_ please make it quite quick, or your friends here will have to pick pieces of your tiny brain from the corners of this squalid little room.” He offered Williamson a ghostly, acid smile. “Although I doubt the additional decoration would do much to alter the look or smell of the place.”

Williamson lifted a finger that, Mycroft was pleased to note, trembled ever so slightly. “That one.”

“Is he alone in there, or is someone with him?”

“He’s alone.”

“I do hope you’re telling the truth.” Mycroft nodded toward the SAS men, and they drew their weapons and opened the door.

Williamson had told the truth, but Mycroft’s heart clenched nevertheless. Sherlock was lying on the filthy floor, curled up on his side. His hands were tied behind his back and a strip of gaffer tape covered his mouth. He looked dreadful: pale, unshaven, his hair tangled and far too long, his clothes rumpled and dirty. He lifted his head and stared at Mycroft, his eyes full of fury and accusation.

The barest gesture of Mycroft’s hand kept the SAS men rooted in place. He moved to Sherlock, knelt gingerly on the floor (his trousers would have to be fumigated, no doubt) and peeled the tape from Sherlock’s mouth as gently as he could. 

“Took you bloody long enough,” Sherlock said in a sneering rasp, and licked his lips. Typical Sherlock; gratitude was simply not in his personal lexicon. 

“I had to organise some assistance. You surely didn’t expect me to charge in here on my own.” Mycroft rolled Sherlock to his belly and untied his hands. “Are these your socks?”

“Yes. Why?”

“They’ve got holes in them.”

“Jesus Christ almighty. Can we perhaps save the editorial comments for a more convenient time?” Sherlock glared at Mycroft, then peered at the two SAS men in the doorway. “One that won’t eat up as many taxpayer pounds.”

“Yes, all right.” Mycroft got to his feet and held out a hand. “Come on, get up.”

Sherlock ignored the extended hand and got to his feet, bracing himself on the lip of the tub Mycroft wouldn’t have touched without a hazmat suit. He hissed, and his face went very white.

“What is it?”

“Burn on my foot. Third-degree, I think.”

Mycroft turned to one of the SAS men. “Help him to the car, please.”

Sherlock protested, his brow knotting and a hint of embarrassed pink touching his cheeks, but he finally consented to letting the SAS man grasp him about the waist and half-carry him out of the flat. Mycroft, Williamson, the young man on the lilo, and the leather-clad gentlemen all watched the departure in silence. When they were gone, Mycroft strolled back to Williamson, still kneeling on the floor, the gun still braced against his temple. He was glad to see that Williamson was sweating. “Mr. Williamson,” he said, “how much does my brother owe you? And please favour me with your honesty.”

Williamson licked dry lips. “Erm. Thirteen hundred pounds. That’s with interest – he’s been owing for more than a month now.”

“I see.” Mycroft reached into a pocket and withdrew a roll of crisp notes. He watched the avarice gleaming in Williamson’s eyes and offered him another razor-thin smile. Greed, amongst the greedy, transcended even fear for one’s own life. The human spectrum really was most colourful. He peeled off notes, folded them, and tucked them into Williamson’s breast pocket. “Thirteen hundred pounds, Mr. Williamson, and a piece of advice: in future, you would do well to cease your association with my younger brother. I have neither the time nor the patience to endure this tedious little exercise again, and if I should discover that my brother’s safety is compromised because of you, rest assured that I will do my utmost to make you a very unhappy young man. Is that clear?”

“Yeah,” the young man whispered. “Crystal.”

“Excellent. Good night, then.” Mycroft nodded and left the flat, followed closely by the SAS men. He saw that Sherlock had been bundled into one of the cars and turned to his assistants, who had removed their balaclavas. “I think I shall drive my brother home tonight. Henderson, did it appear that he was in dire need of medical help?”

Henderson, the square-jawed blond, shook his head. “It covers a fair area, sir, and it’s blistered, but it doesn’t look as if it’s gone down to tissue. Antibiotic ointment and a dressing ought to do the trick.”

“Very well. Thank you for your assistance tonight; you executed your duties superbly. I trust the bonuses will prove adequate.”

“Quite adequate, sir, and thank you. We’ll lead you out until we leave Hackney. It’s a bit on the rough side.” Henderson and the other men saluted, and waited for Mycroft to get into the car. Beside him, Sherlock, his bare, injured foot up propped up on the dashboard, glared at him, but said nothing.

Mycroft drove through the streets silently, following the dark sedan, and ignored his younger brother, although acutely conscious of his increasing tension, the unconscious grinding of teeth, the restless drumming motion of his fingers on his denim-clad thigh. He was not about to be drawn into yet another foolish round of bickering, not when he’d just rescued the ungrateful little prat from peril and possible death, and most decidedly not when Sherlock was apparently still craving cocaine. Mycroft smiled grimly to himself; if tawdry, nasty Mr. Williamson had been in the car, Mycroft would have thanked him for not extending Sherlock credit. Let him suffer. It built character.

“What? What, for God’s sake?”

Mycroft blinked. “I didn’t say a word.”

“Please. I can hear your thoughts, Mycroft. You’re scraping the blade of a lecture on that dull strop you call a brain, getting ready to chide me and take me to task, and if you start in on me I swear to God I will throw myself out of the car. So if you want to tell Mummy how I died, be my guest. Lecture away. Christ, it’s like watching a rat nibbling on a corpse for days, bite after bite until the damned thing waddles away, hugely fat and terribly pleased with itself.”

Mycroft glanced down at his belly. True, it swelled a bit (he’d had his waistcoats let out just a little) over his trousers, but then Sherlock had always been prone to bouts of extreme hyperbole. “It’s nice to see you’re not much the worse for wear after this little incident.”

“I _am_ worse for wear, thanks. My foot is bloody killing me.”

“Second-degree burns, Henderson said. Nothing frightfully serious.”

“Well, I’d like to see you put up with it. You’d be in hospital for weeks, demanding chamomile compresses on your forehead and full anaesthesia for a dressing change.” Sherlock slumped into the seat, his arms folded tightly, and stared out the window without speaking. Mycroft glanced at him now and then from the corner of his eye, but said nothing. After a while, Sherlock spoke again. “Don’t tell Mummy.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Mycroft replied primly.

“Oh, don’t be so fucking sanctimonious. If there’d been trouble, real trouble, you wouldn’t have had the faintest scruples about having one of Her Majesty’s goons shooting Simon in the head, would you? Doubt it. You’d have one of them do it and you’d sleep like a baby. You don’t fool me in the slightest, Mycroft – you’re bloodthirsty, but God forbid you should do any of the wet work yourself.”

Mycroft kept his eyes on the road, but allowed himself a thin smile. Sherlock was brilliant, undoubtedly, but there were some facts Sherlock didn’t know, and would never know. It suited Mycroft to be thought of as utterly fastidious, as a center-puncher, an office grunt. But that wasn’t entirely true. He was twenty-nine years old, and in the seven years he’d worked in his particular branch of Her Majesty’s Government, he’d seen and done…things…that would have surprised even his cynical little brother, though he would never speak of them. _Wet work, indeed_. “I can drive you back there, if you like.”

“I might prefer that to your company. And if you think I’m going to stay in your dreary flat, think again. It’s not happening.”

“Where will you stay, then? On the street?”

Sherlock was silent. He stared at Mycroft, open-mouthed, then back out the window.

“I know your flatmates asked you to leave.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“Because I stopped by yesterday and they’d told me you’d gone, and they were only too eager to share the reasons for your precipitous departure. It seems they were a little tired of you using their kitchen things and food for experiments and having your equipment scattered all over the flat, not to mention the fact that your drug habit was becoming more and more apparent and that you’ve failed to pay your share of the rent for two months. Incidentally, I had your things moved to a storage facility.”

“Idiots,” Sherlock muttered, and rubbed his eyes. “Look here, Mycroft, I wouldn’t have contacted you at all, but my trust wasn’t deposited this quarter.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, why didn’t you sort it out? What do you expect me to live on?”

“I’m the one who had it stopped.”

Sherlock froze. Slowly, he turned toward Mycroft, his face white. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“I….” For the first time in Mycroft’s experience, his brother was without words. His hands twisted together in his lap, and he shook his head, his eyes wide. “How?”

“Mummy named me executor, and Mr. Garland and I re-worked some of the details of the trust. I persuaded her that it was for the best, that the only way to bestow any sense of responsibility upon you was to…ah…restrict access to your funds. It’s all quite above-board, but there exists now a clause that stipulates forfeiture of free use of previously allowed funds should you continue to use the trust money for illegal or immoral purposes. It’s all temporary, naturally. If you cease your cocaine usage, you’ll be permitted limited access to your funds once more.”

“You bloody _bastard_.” Sherlock clenched his fists; his voice shook helplessly. “You can’t do that.”

“I _have_ done it. You’re breaking Mummy’s heart, you know.”

“Don’t drag her into this. God knows how you pulled the wool over her eyes, but you did, I know it. This is all you, Mycroft. You’re not content to meddle in the affairs of the country on a grand scale, you have to get right down into the –“

“You’re a _parasite_ , Sherlock.” Mycroft’s voice, ice-cold and tight with anger, cut across Sherlock’s tirade. Sherlock closed his mouth with a snap. “Dear God in heaven, look at yourself. All that ferocious intelligence, all that extraordinary potential buried beneath the twitching skin of a drug addict. It’s disgusting and selfish and absurd, and what’s more, you know it better than I do. Oh, I know – you’re bored, is that it? Spare me. You’re a sulky, lazy, obstreperous child, Sherlock Holmes, and I am sick to death of your tantrums and your resentments. Grow up, for Christ’s sake, and be a man.”

For some time the only sound in the car was the humming of the Jaguar’s engine and the sound of tyres on wet pavement. The two brothers sat side by side, not speaking, hardly moving.

“I’m not a parasite,” Sherlock whispered.

Mycroft didn’t deign to answer.

“Well, what am I supposed to do? Go into _rehab_?” Sherlock’s voice dripped scorn.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t insult your intelligence with one of those programmes.” Mycroft reached into a side pocket of the door and withdrew a thick bound file. “I understand that you may have a rough few days of it – you may already be experiencing some discomfort now, in addition to your foot. I’m not entirely unsympathetic to your distress, you know.” Sherlock snorted in disbelief; Mycroft chose to ignore the reaction. “I have arranged for a nurse to stay at the flat. I’ll be out of the country beginning Saturday.”

“What for?”

“Pakistan is testing medium-range – well, never mind exactly why. I’ll be out, and that’s all you need to know at present. The nurse will live in, but he’ll be an invisible presence until you need him. Please don’t try to leave the flat, Sherlock.”

“Why? Are you planning to keep me under house arrest?”

“I think it’s best for all concerned,” Mycroft replied. “According to my information, the worst of the withdrawal symptoms should be over within a few weeks. When you’re feeling a bit better, have a look at this.” He waved the file.

Sherlock frowned, but it was obvious that his interest was piqued. “What is it?”

“One of my operatives was murdered in rather gruesome fashion a week ago. For obvious reasons – well, obvious to us, at least – we cannot afford to involve the police. I’ve been given carte blanche to handle this in my own way, and there are some particular details that might interest you.” Sherlock reached for the file, but Mycroft held it away. “I would prefer that you examine this with a clear head. You’re certainly in no condition to look at it tonight.” He pulled the car up to the flat and cut the engine. “Think about it, at least.”

Sherlock was pale, and sweat gleamed on his brow. He still looked awful, but some change had come over his expression. He nodded. “All right. I’ll think about it. No promises.”

“Fair enough.” Mycroft exited the car, and went round to help Sherlock out. “Pick up your foot.” He slung Sherlock’s arm round his neck, put his own arm firmly around Sherlock’s waist, and half-dragged, half-carried him up the stairs. Panting a little, he let them both into the flat, and helped Sherlock to the bathroom. 

Silently, efficiently, he ran the bath while Sherlock undressed, and carefully helped him into the tub. He stripped off his coat, waistcoat, and tie, rolled up his sleeves, took a flannel, and with painstaking care, cleaned his little brother’s injured foot. He smoothed ointment on it, put a clean dressing on it, and then applied himself to getting Sherlock clean. He washed Sherlock’s face and his too-long hair, massaging shampoo into the scalp, shelving his hand across Sherlock’s forehead to keep soap from his eyes as he rinsed. He washed Sherlock’s back, scrubbed under his arms, and left him to soak while he found a dressing gown. Neither spoke. 

When he re-entered the bathroom, Sherlock was asleep in the tub, the leg with the injured foot hooked over one side. Mycroft paused, a heap of brown paisley silk over one arm, and rubbed his eyes. “Sherlock.”

Sherlock didn’t move.

Mycroft sighed and let the water out of the tub. “Come on, Sherlock.” Grunting with effort, he manoeuvred a half-asleep Sherlock from the tub, dried him perfunctorily, got the dressing gown on him, and dragged him upstairs. He dropped Sherlock on the guest bed, worked the sheets and blankets down, and covered him. Sherlock pushed his face into the pillow and made a humming noise, and then, almost visibly, fell into a deep sleep.

Still panting, Mycroft sat on the bed and regarded his sleeping brother. Gently, tenderly, he reached out and brushed wet curls from Sherlock’s forehead, then rested his fingers on one thin white cheek. 

“What am I going to do with you, Sherlock?”

There was no answer; perhaps there never would be. Sighing, Mycroft heaved himself up, turned out the light, and trudged downstairs for a cup of tea and a sandwich. There was the Pakistan problem to be dealt with still.

*


	4. Twenty-four

4\. Twenty-four

 

*

 

He couldn’t call himself a ballet aficionado by any stretch of the imagination (if the music was tolerable, he could endure watching it for an hour, an hour and a half at most, before ennui set in) but he did know the difference between dance tempo and concert tempo, and between the wailing-cat noise the moronic amateur of a conductor was coaxing from the sad conglomeration that dared to call itself an orchestra and the sound of heels thudding down on the elderly wooden stage (sounded like cannonballs; Sherlock was surprised that the audience wasn’t stampeding for the exits, screaming with laughter – well, no, not really surprised. The audience was stupid too) this particular exhibition of the Dance of the Wilis was proving itself a really amusing failure. He half-expected to read about the conductor turning up the next day strangled with a pair of pale pink tights.

Not that there weren’t other sordid goings-on claiming his attention at the moment. 

He waited for the conclusion (more inappropriately up-beat than the rest of the piece – God, they were incompetent) and listened to the applause – polite, no more. Shocking. Maybe there were a few people out there discerning enough to know dreadful renderings when they heard them. Twelve panting, angry dancers stormed into the wings, cursing and sweating. In the second leg of the wings, another group waited to go on, an assemblage of young men and women in vaguely Eastern costume. Sherlock took advantage of the temporary confusion to make his way down to the dressing rooms in the company of the unhappy Wilis. 

“I’m going to kill that fucker,” one of the girls hissed, blotting her face with a fistful of tissue. “Who the hell does he think he –“ She swerved to avoid a passing dresser with an armload of unitards and bumped into Sherlock, who’d planted himself squarely in her path. “Sorry.” She looked at him again and smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Sherlock replied, showing most of his teeth in a wide grin. “God, I’m so lost. Boys’ dressing room?”

“Um, that way,” she said, pointing over her shoulder. “Though if you’re really bored, you can join me.” She returned his smile and looked him up and down.

Sherlock ducked his head and bit his lower lip. “Thanks. See you around.” He pivoted on his heel, slung a battered tote bag over his shoulder, and reversed direction down the corridor.

“Nice try,” he heard another girl say.

“Well, you never know, do you?” the first girl replied in an arch tone.

“Yes, you do. It’s _ninety_ percent, not ten percent.” Both girls giggled.

Sherlock pasted an anxious smile to his face, like a naïve tourist trapped in a crowd of people speaking a completely foreign language, and found the door that said _Men’s Dressing Room._ Simple enough – for the male corps only, he assumed. Principals and possibly soloists would get their own rooms, though they might have had to share for the festival since space seemed tight. He pushed the door open and stepped in, his nostrils assailed by the overwhelming stench of old and fresh sweat mingled with stale cigarette smoke. Smelled like the place hadn’t been aired since 1971 or so. It was a long room, lined with mirrors and makeup tables, a row of benches down the center, and a door at the far end that read _Showers_. A few dancers sat before the lights, applying makeup; others loitered on stools and benches in varying states of undress, chattering and laughing. Sherlock strolled to an empty makeup table. “Is this taken?”

The dancer applying makeup on a nearby stool glanced up from the mirror. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, wearing a plain red unitard. “Doesn’t look like it. Help yourself.”

“Thanks. I’ve never been here before – totally clueless.” Sherlock proffered an apologetic smile and began rummaging through his bag, coming up with a pack of cigarettes. He lit one and inhaled deeply. “You on soon?”

The dancer waved a stick of eyeliner at a speaker attached to the soffit, emitting a crackling, intermittent burst of music, orchestral Morse code. “Half an hour, if that twat on the loudspeaker is telling the truth. _Dances at a Gathering._ You?”

“Oh, not for a few hours yet, but I always get twitchy before these things, so I thought I’d come and warm up a bit.” Sherlock grinned and indicated his cigarette. “Trying to cut down, but days like these –“

“Tell me about it. Could I beg one of those from you?” The dancer smiled and held out a hand. “Brian Gilbert. I’m with Carpe Diem.”

Sherlock took the man’s hand. “Sig Sherrinford. Ballet Essex.”

“Nice. So what are you dancing tonight?” Gilbert accepted the cigarette Sherlock gave him and cupped his hand round the flame of Sherlock’s lighter. His fingers, stained with nicotine, stuttered briefly against Sherlock’s, and his eyes, ringed with kohl, gave Sherlock a quick once-over.

“ _Le Corsaire_. Still waiting for my costume, though. I don’t know where the bloody dresser put it.”

“Oh, tell me about it. Solo?” Gilbert asked with a touch of envy.

“Mm.” Sherlock fished clothes out of his bag. He eyed the dance belt a bit dubiously and peeled his shirt off. “Though honestly, I feel a bit off tonight, what with…you know, what happened yesterday.”

“Aren’t we all? Jesus Christ, how scary can you get?” Gilbert turned back to the mirror, his cigarette clamped between his lips, and began to draw a high, arched brow over the real one he’d blotted out with makeup. “What kind of a world is this – terrorists invading a fucking ballet festival? I mean, really. I guess the show must go on, blah blah blah. We’re all sick about it, though.”

Sherlock pulled off his trainers and unbuttoned his jeans. “Well, they didn’t really invade, did they? Unless – did you see it happen?”

“No. Nobody did, as far as I know. It’s just – one minute Andrei was in the theatre, the next minute – whoosh! Gone. Crazy, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Sherlock agreed. He’d stripped down to his underwear and socks, and cast another suspicious glance at the dance belt. It was ugly as hell, the color of an elastic bandage, and the backside was fairly non-existent. _Ugh._ He slid his boxers off and pulled the thing on. “Oh, God.”

Gilbert looked at him in the mirror. “Something wrong?”

 _Christ, is it supposed to be this uncomfortable?_ “No. I was just – are they sure it was a terrorist group? How can they be sure?” 

“Well, they left a note, right? I mean, if you want to make a big fucking fuss, kidnap the world’s biggest ballet star from the biggest ballet festival in London and sit back and let the press do the rest. Maybe it’ll be a boost for ticket sales and we’ll all get a raise.” Gilbert snickered, then looked contrite. “I shouldn’t say that. I hope they let him go. Did they even ask for a ransom? It’s all so hush-hush.”

“I don’t know.” Sherlock quickly pulled on a pair of black footless tights and winced as he adjusted them. How in the name of God did anyone get used to that feeling? “Strange that no-one else saw it happen.”

“Well, Sasha Terekhov and a couple of girls from Rambert said they saw him go out, but nobody saw him come back. Which is kind of amazing, when you think about it. Kirillovsky’s the biggest fucking showoff in ballet. Needs an audience for everything.”

Sherlock smiled and worked his feet into a pair of black slippers, hurrying so that no-one would see that they were straight and unscathed, not the mangled, blistered, and bunioned feet of a real dancer. He pulled on a pale-blue Adidas warm-up jacket and zipped it. “Aren’t we all showoffs?”

Gilbert laughed. “I guess so. Anyway, everyone’s inconsolable, and it’s been chaos all day. Well, you saw the reporters outside when you came in, yeah? You wouldn’t believe the people giving interviews. _So_ stupid. Sasha’s the only one who’s been coherent, and even he’s a mess.”

“Were they close, he and Sasha?”

“Oh yeah, for certain.” Gilbert glanced at Sherlock in the mirror. “Darling, if the foundation’s too heavy, the building sinks.”

“What?”

“A little lighter with that makeup. You’re really glopping it on there.”

“Oh.” An embarrassed smile curved Sherlock’s mouth. “Sorry. I’m twitchy, like I said.” He ground his cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray and wiped a bit of the pancake off. Five more minutes, he promised himself. Then he was looking for some other avenue of information. This couldn’t have been more tiresome, nothing but backstage gossip, and the bloody dance belt crawling up his arse wasn’t helping in the least.

“You’re doing _Corsaire_? I do a perfect _Corsaire_ face, believe me. Let me help.” Gilbert stood and gazed down at Sherlock. “Hm. Not bad. I can work with this.” He took a kerchief from his dressing table, whipped it into a cord, and made a knot at the ends, then slid it over Sherlock’s head, pushing his hair back from his face. “That’s better. Hold still now. This kit of yours is pathetic. Let’s just use mine.” 

“Really, I can –“

“Oh, no, it’s my pleasure.” Gilbert grinned, his exaggeratedly made-up eyes gleaming. He tilted Sherlock’s chin up with one hand, then started working with sponges and brushes and cotton swabs, dipping into pots and jars with astonishing speed. “Fabulous kisser, Sig.”

Sherlock barely refrained from casting his eyes upward. He smiled. “Than –“ but Gilbert lay a finger on his mouth.

“Shh. Don’t talk. What was I saying before?”

“Sasha,” Sherlock managed through rigid and evidently fabulous lips. He looked at Gilbert straight on. Red eyes, sour breath, sniffling, exceedingly distinct aroma emanating from skin: amyl nitrite user, heavy, too, judging by the intensity of the odour, and an additional smell of the previous night’s vodka binge drifting from his pores. He had a short career as a dancer ahead of him if he kept up the inhalant and alcohol abuse. Receding hairline, touch of minoxidil on the scalp, home-dyed, greying roots showing a bit. No time to touch up, or perhaps indifference. Likely indifference, Sherlock thought: nearly thirty, still a corps boy, no chance now of becoming a star, a minor role in what would be a big event in a younger dancer’s life, Mr. Gilbert was rapidly blossoming into a gossiping, flirtatious lush, a ballet never-was.

“Oh, right. Suck those cheeks in. God, you hardly need contouring. Yeah, they’re really close. Well, they were in the Maryinsky together, y’know.”

“Were they…um…you know… _really_ close?”

“Oh, God no! How do you not know this? Sasha’s addicted to pussy, and Andrei only likes cock. Still, they grew up together, and if you can’t get along with all sorts, you don’t belong in ballet, am I right?”

“Right.” Sherlock frowned a little. “Right.”

“Don’t frown. Almost done. Look up, up. Oh, skimpy lashes, Sig. Your only flaw. Sasha’s supposed to do _Apollo_ tonight – I’m sure this is going to throw him off. The balletomanes will be, like, just waiting to watch him fall on his ass. So is everyone else, probably. Of course, now that this has happened, everyone’s scared, but honestly, who else are they going to grab? Especially now that the police are watching so carefully.” Gilbert leaned closer, tracing a brush over Sherlock’s mouth. “Next time, darling, shave a little closer. Personally, I recommend waxing. Makes you less mottled on stage. Believe me, people notice.” He dusted powder over Sherlock’s face, then whipped off the kerchief with a flourish. “There - _et voilà_!”

Sherlock turned to the mirror. Gilbert had dramatically darkened and arched his eyebrows, lined his eyes with shimmering black stuff, sharpened his features here and there with some sort of bronzy cream, and exaggerated his mouth with a clay-colored pencil. He looked ridiculous, but not, he supposed, altogether out of place. He smiled at Gilbert. “Thanks a million, it looks fantastic.”

“My pleasure. What are you doing after? Want to have a drink?”

“I’d love that, Brian.” Sherlock dialed his smile up a few notches. Time was trickling away; time to really start digging. “I should probably go and hunt my costume down.”

Gilbert laughed. “Take off the jacket and slap on a couple of armbands, no-one will notice.”

“I wonder if it might have got mixed up with some of the principals’ costumes,” Sherlock said. “Where are their dressing rooms, do you know?”

“Down that way,” Gilbert said, pointing. “Won’t likely be there, though. Only the top bitches have their own rooms for this affair.”

“Sasha?”

“Oh, of course. Andrei too, and naturally Andrei’s is nicer. Could I beg another smoke? Dying here. You know how it is.”

“I _do_ ,” Sherlock replied feelingly, and gave him another cigarette. _Freeloader._ A static-ridden sound of applause came from the speaker, and then a robotic female voice. 

“Curtain coming down. _Dances at a Gathering_ , on in fifteen. Little Swans, ready for places please. Curtain going up.”

“First curtain call all day, I bet. Got to go. The hag demands my presence,” Gilbert said, getting to his feet with a slight grunt. Incipient arthritis, lower back issues, weakening metatarsals. Sherlock gave him another two years at most. “Come find me when you’re through, yeah? There’s a nice quiet pub just round the corner.”

“Absolutely,” Sherlock said. “Um, _merde_.”

“ _Merde_ ,” Gilbert said with a wink, and pushed out the door, a number of other young men following behind him.

Sherlock waited a moment, lighting another cigarette and listening to the gossip around him. The kidnapping of Andrei Kirillovsky was big news – he heard the dancer’s name here and there, drifting like autumn leaves caught in a breeze – but nothing useful, mostly salacious gossip. Everyone seemed to be swallowing the terrorist angle with no difficulty at all. But it _wasn’t_ a terrorist group. He just had to prove it….

Satisfied that no-one was really paying attention to him, he got up and exited the men’s dressing room, trying not to twitch visibly at the unbelievably discomfiting sensation of the dance belt crawling up his arse. He resisted the urge to give it a tug and moved down the corridor in the direction of the principals’ dressing rooms. There were names on the doors, bordered by stars. Despite the illustrious names, Sherlock saw no press, no fans, only dance and theatre personnel – there had been some reorganisation after the abduction, though it hadn’t taken any effort at all to slip past the police at the door. Some security team they were.

The speakers in the corridor gave off another tinny blast of music – Tchaikovsky, rendered as badly as he’d expected. God, it was tragic. If he’d been in the audience, he’d have thrown tomatoes.

He found Kirillovsky’s room, bordered by crime-scene tape. Sherlock leaned against the door-frame, exhaling a lavish plume of smoke, and reached into the pocket of the warm-up jacket. Carefully, he inserted the pick into the lock, and after a moment felt it give. 

Dancers, dressers, and self-important administrators rushed past, but no-one gave him a second glance; this was the biggest ballet festival in London, and they weren’t going to shut it down, even if one of its brightest stars had been snatched from it by some very clever party masquerading as a terrorist. The show must go on – how very ruthless. Sherlock smiled.

The door opened easily, and Sherlock slipped under the tape and stepped inside, closing the door behind him and clicking on the light. The room was small – a stool at a tiny built-in table, a lighted wall mirror bordered with florist cards and handwritten notes, a slim rack for costumes, a minuscule shower. Bunches of wilting flowers took up most of the available floor space. Sherlock stepped close to the table, examining the items strewn across it: makeup, vitamins, contact lens solution, cigarettes, a jar of bee pollen, a tin of breath mints, the festival programme opened to Kirillovsky’s photo. He leant close to the mirror to read the cards. Notes of admiration, pre-emptive congratulations, wishes for luck. A few were in French, and one was in Russian. Sherlock frowned at a familiar smell and moved closer to the mirror. He plucked the note in Russian from the security of its tape and gazed at it thoughtfully, then held it to his nose.

At length, Sherlock pocketed the card and turned out the light. He opened the door and ducked under the tape – amazing, really nobody was watching the place at all – and moved further down the corridor. He paused at another door: _Aleksandr Terekhov_.

“Sasha,” Sherlock whispered. He dropped the smoldering stub of his cigarette and ground it under the thin leather sole of one slipper. The dance belt was still bothering him; surreptitiously, he gave it a tug. It felt comfortable for a moment, then began its slow inexorable creep again. Sherlock winced and knocked boldly on the door.

Nobody answered. Sighing, Sherlock turned, pasting an expression of disappointment on his face (couldn’t meet up with my idol, what a pity), and collided with a small man carrying an armful of costumes in dry-cleaners’ plastic. “Oh – sorry.”

“It’s okay.” The man smiled at him. “Crowded down here.”

“It is.” Sherlock waited until the man had scurried out of sight, then tested the doorknob. Locked. He performed his little trick again with the pick, pushed the door open, and slid inside.

This dressing room wasn’t much different from Kirillovsky’s, despite Gilbert’s assertion to the contrary. The flowers were fresher, he noticed, but there were fewer of them, as well as fewer cards on the mirror. A Russian newspaper lay folded on the dressing stool, and a pair of slippers sat skewed on the floor, as if the wearer had just stepped out of them. Sherlock picked one up and examined it, then saw a card taped to the mirror. Russian handwriting. He removed it neatly and slipped it into his pocket, then bent to examine the newspaper. 

_Terrorists Abduct Kirillovsky From Theatre_

His Russian wasn’t terribly good, but he got the gist well enough – the newspaper was a local one for the Russian-speaking community in England, and it looked like a standard-issue wire service story, with additional details of Kirillovsky’s background and early career. Sherlock clicked his tongue, went to set the paper down again, and halted.

“Oh. What’s this?”

The programme lay open on the stool, open to Kirillovsky’s photo. Sherlock picked it up. Dog-eared, very much handled, smeared with…makeup, looked like, and something greasy like butter or mayonnaise. And the smell…. Sherlock held the programme to his nose and frowned. 

_Now that’s not a coincidence…._

He heard the click before the light went out, and turned just in time to see the bright glare of a torch come to life. He lifted his hand to shield his eyes, and something hard caught him on the side of the head. Sherlock staggered backward, knocking over a vase in the dark. Glass crashed, and he felt water soaking into his slippers. The light stayed relentlessly in his face, blinding him to his attacker.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Someone –“

The hard object (what was it? That smell again, stronger now) crashed into his temple, and brilliant crimson flared in his vision before he fell senseless to the floor.

 

*

 

Sherlock came to in the dark. He blinked and gingerly touched his temple. Bleeding, as he’d suspected, and painful. A duller, thudding sensation in time with his pulse reverberated in his skull, likely from where he’d hit the floor. His jacket was sopping wet, and for one befuddled moment he thought he was bleeding, but then remembered the broken vase. He sat up with a groan, cradling his head.

_Reckon I was wrong about nobody watching._

Which, he realised, only proved his suspicions. He leapt to his feet, his head protesting, and groped for the light switch. Squinting against the sudden brightness, he looked round the room. Broken vase, roses scattered across the floor. Slippers still there. He glanced at the dressing stool.

The newspaper and programme had disappeared.

“Ha,” Sherlock murmured. He checked his pockets; both cards still there. Good. His watch read seven-forty-two. He’d only been out cold for a few minutes. He leant toward the mirror, examining the wound on his temple. What on earth had they struck him with? It hurt like hell and had bled rather copiously, running down the side of his face in dark red rivulets. He smiled a little; with any luck, people might take it for stage blood against all the makeup he wore. His pupils looked normal, at least. He snatched up some tissues from a box and scrubbed at the blood as he left the dressing room.

Once again, everyone appeared to be going about their business, but he knew that wasn’t quite true. He ran down the corridor and up the stairs to the stage door. The guard there gave him a startled glance as he burst outside and accosted the lone policeman standing in the alley.

“You! Has anyone left here in the last five minutes?”

 

*

 

Greg contained a sigh and surreptitiously checked his watch for what was probably the fiftieth time that evening. His shift was almost up, and even though the overtime would come in handy, he was looking forward to going home, having supper (Annie had made cottage pie, his favorite, and the expression on her face when he’d told her he had to pick up a shift was none too pleased), maybe watching a bit of telly, and maybe, just maybe if Annie wasn’t still narked – a nice, lazy shag before bed. Of course, that was unlikely. Annie hadn’t wanted to do it for nearly a month now, and he was about ready to give up altogether. Or find someone else.

The disloyal thought made him feel bad, but not as bad as he’d felt the first time it had occurred.

He leaned against the brick wall and whistled a bit. Not long now. It was a nice night, at least, chilly but not outright cold yet, and crisp and clear, with that unmistakable scent of autumn in the air. He wished he’d been here for the initial investigation instead of relegated to what amounted to a night watchman’s job. Once they’d received the note, slipped underneath the box office door, the theatre had been closed down and searched thoroughly, but Kirillovsky had been long gone by then, with no witnesses to his abduction. And nothing had happened since then, more than twenty-four hours ago. The kidnappers had only announced that they’d grabbed him on behalf of imprisoned comrades; no demands had been made at all, no further communication had ensued. The festival would be over by tomorrow evening, and though NSY had hoped for a timely rescue, it hadn’t happened yet. Kirillovsky had been scheduled to dance the first number as well as the final number, a big deal apparently, and the first number had never happened and the final number looked like it wasn’t going to happen either. And instead of helping to look for him, Greg Lestrade was stuck baby-sitting a building.

He shifted and stuck his hands disconsolately in his pockets. His stomach was making plaintive noises.

“You!”

The stage door banged open, and Greg turned, startled, to see a young male dancer with wild dark curls pointing at him.

“Has anyone left here in the last five minutes?”

Greg hadn’t been to a ballet since his mother had dragged him kicking and screaming to _The Nutcracker_ when he was eight. His first fleeting thought as he looked at the young man was that they must have been tailoring ballet to modern movie-going audiences nowadays – there was scarily realistic stage blood on his face and warm-up jacket. “No, it’s been dead as a doornail.”

The young man strode up to him, his posture challenging, his dramatically made-up face set in a scowl. “A launderette van, or a dry-cleaner’s. Nothing at all?”

“No, sor –“ Greg squinted at the young man’s face. That wasn’t stage blood at all. “Holy Christ. What happened to you? You okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ve just been hit on the head with a blunt instrument, though, and if the person who did it didn’t escape through the stage door, then they’re either still in the theatre or they left through another exit. Where are the other exits?” 

The young man moved as if to dart back into the theatre, but Greg grasped his arm. “Hang on a minute. I’m not sure you’re fine. You might have concussion – you’re bleeding a lot.”

The dancer’s frown deepened. “Sergeant…”

“Lestrade. Gr –“

“Sergeant Lestrade, whoever hit me is involved in the kidnapping of Andrei Kirillovsky, and not to tell you your business, but while you’re chatting with me, the trail’s growing a bit chilly. So if you don’t mind –“ The young man wrenched his arm free and made for the stage door again. 

Greg followed him. “Kidnapping – you mean there are terrorists in the bloody theatre? How the hell do you know that?”

“They’re not terrorists.” The young man pulled on the handle, then rattled it. “The damn thing’s locked!”

“Yeah, it locks from the inside. Wait, slow down a minute.”

“No time.” The dancer banged on the door. “Hey!” Nobody answered, and the young man wheeled and looked up and down the alley. “Must be another exit. Inconspicuous.” He took a step, staggered, and braced himself against the wall with a hand. “Hell,” he muttered.

“All right.” Greg took the young man’s arm again, very firmly, in the reassuring yet intimidating grip he used with drunken Hooray-Henrys carousing in public fountains, and propelled him toward the squad car. “I don’t want you passing out on me. If you’ve got information, it’ll keep until we get you to A&E.”

“I’m not going to the hospital!” the young man snarled, swatting at Greg’s hand as he stumbled along. “Listen carefully. Whoever’s abducted Kirillovsky used a launderette or a dry-cleaning van, and Sasha Terekhov is in on it as well. Come on, get your hand off my arm!”

“What’s your name, lad?”

“Sherlock Holmes.”

“Well, Sherlock, you can tell me everything on the way to the hospital, all right?”

“God, do the police _deliberately_ hire idiots or do you receive special training? Don’t you get it? We’ve got to find out where they’re holding him! He hasn’t much time.”

Greg kept his grip on Sherlock’s arm and kept his voice steady and calm, though his patience was eroding rapidly. “You’re not going to have much time either, if that head wound keeps bleeding.”

“Never mind my head.” Sherlock dug in his feet, forcing Greg to halt with him. “Just wait. Look.” He dug in the pockets of his warm-up jacket and produced two folded pieces of paper. “Look at this. Two cards, both written in Russian. Same kind of paper, both produced and sold in St. Petersburg. Thick stock, pine pulp, but that doesn’t account for the smell on both of them. Go on, have a sniff.”

Greg sighed, but decided to indulge him. Might help calm him down. He took both pieces of paper and sniffed at them. “It does smell a bit piney, though.”

“Right. It’s powdered rosin, the kind dancers use. Not really widespread nowadays because most theatres have modernised their stage floors, but some of them still have wood and wood is slippy, don’t you see?”

“Okay,” Greg said cautiously, then paused. “Hang on, what did you say your name was?”

“Holmes. Sherlock Holmes.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Greg shook his head and handed the cards back. “I thought your name sounded familiar. You’re that fella who comes round to the Met now and then, aren’t you, bothering the force about unsolved cases? Gregson and Bradstreet told me about you. Look, I’m going to take you to A&E, and then I’ll take you home. Where you belong.”

“I see. You’re clearly as stupid as all the rest. You think I’m some nutter who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Even though when Hilary DeMille murdered her husband and I was the only one who realised she’d been feeding him arsenic in small –“

“Coincidence.” Greg pulled on Sherlock’s arm again. “Come on.”

“At least hear me out!”

“You can talk as much as you want in the squad car.”

“You’re a bloody idiot,” Sherlock snapped. 

Greg rounded on him. “Okay, I’ve had just about enough.”

“Andrei Kirillovsky was _not_ abducted by terrorists, and I can prove it. I’ve got the god-damned proof right here – are you going to let the man be murdered, or are you going to listen to me and save his life and perhaps climb a rung or two on the Met ladder – _Sergeant_? Or no, don’t tell me. You’d rather wear that uniform and spend the rest of your career arresting drunks and junkies instead of handling the interesting cases, the ones that _matter_.”

Greg felt his fingers digging deeper into Sherlock Holmes’ arm and forced himself to relax a bit. It was true that he itched to work on the really tough stuff, the sort of work that required thought and a scrap of intelligence, but for whatever reason he’d been relegated to baby-sitting. Maybe he was too easy-going, or maybe a promotion required more than hard work and steady dedication. Maybe he had to take a leap once in a while. 

But with Sherlock Holmes, who already had a reputation as a bit of a looney as well as a bother? His credibility might take a hit, and his chances for advancement with it. He’d always trusted his intuition; it was part of what had kept him alive and whole as a police officer for the past seven years. All he knew about Sherlock Holmes was that he was a nutter who popped round and ranted and raved a bit about the police being incompetent…and yet, the evidence he’d presented on the DeMille case had been solid. Had anyone picked up on that? No – they’d dismissed it as coincidence and mocked Holmes’ insistence. Once a nutter….

Maybe there was more to Holmes than met the eye, though. And if Greg cracked the Kirillovsky case with Holmes’ help….

“All right, listen,” Greg said. “You’ve got fifteen minutes to prove your idea, but first I’m putting a dressing on that head wound, because you look like someone attacked you with an axe. Is it still bleeding?”

Sherlock touched his temple and examined his bloody fingers. “Not so much.”

Greg sighed. “Okay. I’m counting on you not to pass out in the next fifteen minutes. Come on, let’s shift it.” He led Sherlock to the squad car and made him sit down as he fished out the first-aid kit. “I’m going to clean it up a bit. Hold still, lad.” Sherlock submitted meekly enough to Greg’s ministrations. It was hard to tell, but he looked a bit pale under the makeup and blood. “So I’m guessing you’re not really a ballet dancer.”

“No. It was the best way to investigate inconspicuously, that’s all.”

“Don’t you have a real job?”

Sherlock glared at him. “What the hell does that matter?”

“Peace, peace.” Greg held up his hands. “Just making conversation.” He pressed a clean dressing against Sherlock’s temple. “Does that hurt much?”

“Not really. Look, Lestrade, time’s of the essence here, I think.”

“You say it’s not a terrorist group.”

“No. When terrorists commit crimes, they make certain the media’s kept fed. Whatever the cause, whatever the crime. They crave attention, they hunger for it. Inspiring fear, legitimising their ideologies, forcing compliance – none of that can be accomplished unless they maintain an open line of communication.”

“Okay.” Greg had heard a few people saying the same thing at the Met, but they’d been shouted down in fairly short order. “But there was a note claiming responsibility.”

“But not demanding the release of any particular prisoners?”

Greg hesitated. It wasn’t standard order of procedure to release details to the public, but…. He shrugged. “No. It was more of a rant, I guess.”

“And no follow-up communiques, either.”

“No.”

“It’s a sham, a smokescreen to cover the truth, and not even a good one. How closely did you people examine it? Back to the notes.” Sherlock, odd-looking with his outlandish makeup and crazy hair tumbling over the white dressing, dug in his pockets and produced the notes again. “Right. Now you smelled the rosin on them. That particular blend is Russian, same as the notes. Must be some sort of performance ritual for them, sending each other good-luck notes. But smell this one.” He extended the paper.

Greg sniffed. “I only smell the pine.”

“If you took it to your lab and performed chemical analysis – which of course nobody bothered to do – you’d be able to detect traces of tetrachloroethylene on this note only.”

“What the hell’s that?”

“Dry cleaning fluid,” Sherlock said. “I wasn’t thinking – I didn’t grab the slippers from Terekhov’s room, but I should have. If you get them, you’ll find more of the same. The smell’s all over his things.”

“So you’re saying that Terekhov’s in on it? But the dry cleaning –“

“It had to be something commonplace,” Sherlock exclaimed, pushing himself out of the squad car. “Come on, there’s got to be another exit. Bring a torch.” He moved rapidly down the alley, then turned back. “Hurry up!”

Greg grabbed a torch and followed, intrigued despite his misgivings. Sherlock Holmes might have been a nutter, but he wasn’t boring. “What about the dry cleaning?” he called.

“The smell’s simple to identify, and the vehicle they used to remove him had to be one that wouldn’t be remarked upon at a theatre. They must have had ten different costume deliveries here today alone, with all the performances. But the stage door’s fairly busy, so they couldn’t have abducted him from there.” Sherlock paused. “Of course – the man with the costumes! He was the one watching me. Probably left already, in plain sight. God, stupid!” He wheeled on Greg. “Don’t speak, don’t breathe, don’t think. Just – stay there and be quiet.”

Greg wasn’t sure what Sherlock was on about. “I’m beginning to see why you’ve got a bit of notoriety down at the Met.”

“That’s because you lot never use your collective loaf.”

“Case in point, I guess,” Greg said.

“Shut up!”

Greg decided to ignore Holmes’ rudeness. “Maybe they drugged him?”

“But then how would they get him out of the theatre? Doesn’t make sense. You’d have to drag him out; he’s a big star, people would make a fuss, think he was sick, take photos. No, he was lured out somehow, and by someone who knew him well.”

“Terekhov? But why?”

Sherlock stopped in the alley. “Rivalry.”

Greg almost ran into him. “Come on, that’s a bit melodramatic, isn’t it?” He vaguely remembered being hungry a while ago. He wondered if Annie was keeping the cottage pie warm.

“Whoever hit me on the head took both a Russian newspaper and the festival programme from Terekhov’s dressing room.”

Greg shook his head. “You were snooping in their dressing rooms? Please tell me you didn’t go into Kirillovsky’s….”

Sherlock shrugged. “I didn’t disturb much.”

“Oh, God.”

“That’s not the point. The newspaper was a story about the kidnapping. It went on a bit about Kirillovsky, about his popularity. The programme was open to Kirillovsky’s biography. Whoever was reading it – Terekhov, it would be safe to assume, since it _was_ his dressing room after all – was a bit obsessive. He’d handled it over and over, and got some food on the pages, as well as makeup. Since there wasn’t much on the page besides a bio, which he probably knew quite well as both dancers had been trained together from childhood, I gather he was a bit upset.”

“Well, if they were childhood friends, makes sense that he was upset, doesn’t it?” Greg replied, a bit exasperated. “His best friend had just been kidnapped, I’d be upset too. That’s not a lot to go on.”

“The note,” Sherlock said, waving it in Greg’s face. “Look at the handwriting.”

Greg grasped Sherlock’s hand and aimed the beam of the torch at the note. “It’s in Russian.”

“The text isn’t important. It’s just a wish for success. ‘To Andriushka, good fortune tonight as ever, et cetera, with affection from Sasha.’ What matters is _how_ it’s written. The writing – so deep and hard it indents the paper, almost tears it even though the stock is quite heavy.” Sherlock turned the note over and brushed a finger across the heavily textured blank side of the paper. “Whoever wrote this was under a great deal of stress.”

“Performance anxiety?”

“Doubt it. Terekhov only had one performance scheduled, and that’s tonight. Unlikely that an experienced dancer would be so tense that early. Come on.” Sherlock turned on his heel and kept moving down the alley. “There’s another door down there. Did they take soil samples?”

“Yeah, but nothing extraordinary came up. I’m still not convinced, Sherlock.”

“The programme,” Sherlock said.

“What about it?”

Sherlock stared at Greg for a moment, then shook his head slowly. “It’s astounding, really. How do you manage to get through the day?”

“Hey!”

Sherlock sighed. “Fine. Kirillovsky was dancing first – well, after some sort of kiddie exhibition, anyway – and last, wrapping up the festival, but he was abducted _before_ his performance. Any terrorist worth his salt would have waited until after the first performance. Triumph for the papers, splashy displays of athleticism followed by horrifying crime, the nation mourns – but no. He doesn’t perform at all. And then his dear, devoted friend, who isn’t quite as popular, soldiers bravely on. When Kirillovsky is found dead, which is certain to happen in the next few hours or so, after his friend’s courageous performance, Aleksandr Terekhov sets a little stool down beside his grief, milks it for all it’s worth, and comes up smelling like a rose. It’s not political, it’s _personal._ Rivalry, pure and simple.”

Greg took a deep breath. “Jesus. Are you sure?”

“Mm. Hold on.” Sherlock held a hand out, halting Greg’s progress. “Give me your torch.” Greg handed it over, and Sherlock got on his hands and knees. “Don’t move.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Hang on. Here…and here.” Triumphantly, Sherlock pointed at the ground. “Thank God for slovenly maintenance. Tracks in the dirt and gravel. Two men, both dancers – the tread proves it, they’ve all got that duck walk, developmental hip dysplasia. One is taller and heavier than the other, though. That’d be Terekhov.” He scooped up a small handful of dirt and brought it close to his nose. “Rosin. St. Petersburg blend. And eau de tetrachloroethylene.”

“But couldn’t that just have been common?” Greg asked. “I mean, all dancers must smell like that a bit.”

“But his slippers were nearly saturated with the smell, and the note too. I’m stunned that you can’t smell it. You should cut down on the cigarettes. The note was on Kirillovsky’s mirror _before_ he was kidnapped, which means Terekhov was arranging things at the dry cleaner’s beforehand. The place must reek of it. The slippers….” Sherlock crawled close to the door and let out a cry.

“What?”

“Sobranies!” Sherlock held up two cigarette butts. “Russian, Lestrade. Your forensics team is tragically inept. Two male dancers came out here to have a cigarette. This far away from the stage door, who’d hear a struggle when the van pulled up? And then Terekhov went along with them, back to the dry cleaning shop, which is how his slippers acquired the odor. Now all we have to do is find the right shop, and you’ll find Kirillovsky.”

It felt right. Somehow, for all that this guy was snappish and more than a little eccentric, it felt solid and right. Greg trusted his intuition. “God, there must be a hundred shops in London.”

“Look for the ones in the Russian communities. There must be a connection – family, maybe? Someone willing to help Terekhov out and hold Kirillovsky captive until the time comes to kill him. And we’ve got to find out soon, because Terekhov performs in less than an hour, and you can be sure that he’ll go back to the shop flushed with success and ready to see his best friend die.”

Adrenaline surged in Greg’s veins. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“To find the bloody dry cleaning shop. Come on!”

 

*

 

It took two hours, but they narrowed the location down at last, and sat in the car, side by side, watching the faint light in the shop. Most dry cleaners didn’t stay open until ten on a Saturday night.

“I haven’t seen anyone leave or enter,” Sherlock complained.

“I don’t want to risk going round back,” Greg said. “I’m calling for backup.” He proceeded to do just that, and then turned to Sherlock. “Are you all right? You look bloody awful.”

“I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Greg lay a restraining hand on Sherlock’s arm. “If you’re right about this, I think I’m going to owe you a massive favour.”

Sherlock shrugged. “I don’t care about that. And frankly, I’d prefer that you didn’t mention my name in regard to this.”

Interesting. Greg would have guessed that Holmes was in it for acclaim of some sort. “Then why are you doing this? Why bother the Met the way you do?”

There was a pause. “Why not?”

Greg considered for a moment. “Most people want recognition for stuff like this.”

“I don’t need the press hounding me. You’ll know. That’s enough.”

“Well, as long as you’re on the right side of the law, I reckon it doesn’t matter why. How you arrived at all that’s beyond me.”

A little smile tugged the corners of Holmes’ lipsticked mouth upwards. “That seems abundantly clear.”

Smart-arse. Greg was about to frame a retort, then saw a car gliding silently next to his. “Right. Stay here, Sherlock.” When Sherlock was about to protest, Greg locked a hand round his wrist. “For your own safety. You’re already wounded, and I don’t want you caught in the crossfire, if there is any. Stay put, all right?” He gave Sherlock a stern look, and got out of the car.

 

*

 

Sherlock had been right. When Greg Lestrade and his team had infiltrated the dry cleaning shop, they found a frightened and exhausted Kirillovsky bound in a closet, and a particularly gruesome execution scenario involving murder by dry-cleaning fluid prepared for him. They’d apprehended the perpetrators, rescued Kirillovsky, and arrested Terekhov immediately following a performance that the papers the following day gleefully described as inappropriately manic.

Greg rubbed his hands over his face and trudged back to the squad car. It was midnight, and he was beyond knackered. Annie was probably going to kill him, and he was bloody starving, but victory sang in his blood. Gregson had murmured something about promotion; it seemed too good to be true.

He stopped in his tracks. The boot of the car was open, and Sherlock was bent over, examining the little arsenal inside. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I got bored.”

“How did you get the damned boot open?”

Sherlock shrugged. “Wasn’t difficult.” He closed the boot with a bang. “Can you give me a lift home?” He leant against the car, peculiar-looking in his makeup, bandage, and practise clothes. He even wore ballet slippers.

 _Odd duck_ , Greg thought. But an odd duck who’d solved a kidnapping and saved a man’s life. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

“Thanks. Can’t wait to get out of this bloody dance belt. My arse is killing me.”

_Do I want to know? No, probably not._

With resigned good grace, Greg opened the passenger door and gestured toward it. “Get in, Sherlock.”

 

 

*

 

For the first time in seven years, Greg Lestrade went to work in a suit. It felt strange, a bit vulnerable, but he’d get used to it. Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade.

Yes, he’d get used to it.

Whistling, he went to his office and booted up his computer, sipping a cup of tea. He sat back, waiting for the Met interface, and turned at a knock on the door. “Come on in!”

An office with a door, an increase in salary, new respect from the crew at the Met. Life was not bad. If Annie could have mustered some happiness for him, it would have been great, but he had to take what he could get.

The door opened, and a tall man strolled in, impeccably and expensively dressed, with thinning hair, and carrying an umbrella, though it was a fine day. He stopped in front of Greg’s desk and regarded him in silence for a moment, his expression inscrutable.

“Hello,” Greg said. “Can I help you with anything?”

“Detective Inspector Lestrade?”

“That’s right.”

“How do you do.” The man extended a hand. “Mycroft Holmes.”

 

*


	5. Twenty-eight

*

 

5\. Twenty-eight

 

“Do you know who I am?”

Sherlock winced as blood from the cut over his eye filmed his vision into a scarlet haze, but he kept a tight grip on the thin length of steel rebar that held the three men at bay. “Certainly I do. Tony Hudson, builder, entrepreneur, con artist, extortionist, drug trafficker, kidnapper, murderer – did I leave anything out?” 

One of Tony’s henchmen, beyond laughable in a Hawaiian shirt that billowed like a staysail over white trousers, surged forward, possibly to jump over the wide footing that separated Sherlock from his would-be assailants, but Sherlock swung the rebar, making a rather frightening noise with it that promised serious damage to anyone stupid enough to get in its way. Pointless, really – the man was in his fifties, never exercised, smoked and drank copiously, and had a minor heart condition. Sherlock swiftly wiped the blood from his eye and grinned at them. _Should have let him fall – he’d have a nice greenstick fracture by now._

The man’s gold chain gleamed against his skin, tanned to the color and texture of an old saddle. “You got one smart fuckin’ mouth on you, you little shit.”

Sherlock beamed. “Thank you.” God, his head was killing him. He had to get out, and fast, before they could see that he wasn’t exactly at his best.

Tony, far more tastefully dressed in a beige linen suit, rested a hand on the man’s shoulder. “All right, Stu. Let’s not get ourselves into a lather.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Young man – you’ve got about all of it, I’d say, but let’s not quibble over definitions. Tell me – are you the one who planted the camera in my office?”

“Oh, you don’t mind, do you? I got such a lot of really fascinating stuff. Did you happen to check your electronic and paper files for signs of tampering as well? Quite a bit of gripping reading there. You should probably invest in a tighter security system. Anyway, it was all quite engrossing. I think the police will find it _equally_ engrossing, don’t you?” Bless Mycroft and his little band of well-mannered hired thugs. A horrible pain in the arse his older brother most certainly was, but he had access to all manner of spycraft in every possible location, even – curiouser and curiouser – Miami, Florida, and inasmuch as he dragged Sherlock half-willingly into any number of cases, Sherlock took full advantage of Mycroft’s connections whenever possible.

“I’m sure they will, but they’re not going to see it.” Tony Hudson took a step toward the edge of the deep footing, but Sherlock swung the rebar again, and Hudson stepped back. “Come on now, don’t be stupid. Just hand it over and we’ll let you live.”

“I’m not quite as stupid as your chums there, Hudson. The film’s already en route to the Miami PD. If I were you, I’d start putting my affairs in order, because with what they’re about to find out, you’re well on your way to an early expiry date yourself.”

“You’re bluffing,” Hudson replied calmly.

Sherlock snorted. He _was_ bluffing, but there was no sense in showing his hand too early. There had to be a quick way out of the maze of vehicles and materials, but his point of ingress had been on the other side of the building site, behind the three men, and if the high wire-mesh fencing ran round the entire site without a break, he was in a spot of bother. “You’ll find out for certain in an hour or so. Might want to start packing.”

The other man with Tony, a vast-shouldered bald ox in a t-shirt and jeans, moved close to the edge of the footing. “Kid,” he said in a tone that, while it was gentle and almost friendly, left no doubt about his sincerity. “You’ve got about three seconds to put that bar down before I jump over there and twist it around that skinny neck of yours.”

Sherlock’s headache intensified. If there was a genuine physical threat, it was from this man. He packed quite an impressive wallop, as Sherlock had discovered about ten minutes before. “Jump, then.”

The man shook his head. “You really, really don’t want to do this.”

Stu seemed to take courage from his large friend’s calmness. “You see that footer, you smart-ass fuck?” He pointed downward. “We can play this two ways. You can give us the film and the other shit you _stole_ – his tone was aggrieved, as if Sherlock were the criminal – “or we slit your fuckin’ throat and dump you down there and pour half a ton of concrete over your dead scrawny ass.”

“Hm. Excellent idea. It wouldn’t be much different from burying a corpse underground, you know. Concrete breathes a bit too, so the gases from my decomposing body will build up, invade their encasement, eventually rupture inside me, and compromise the structural integrity of the building, and I might bring the whole thing crashing down. I’ve always wanted to bring a building down single-handedly.” Sherlock glanced over one shoulder. If only a few work lights had been on…the only light, bright though it was, happened to be incidental, the tropical purple glow from the thousands of buildings thrumming in the steaming-hot Miami night. Heavy machinery behind him: a crane, a huge excavator, concrete mixer, a backhoe loader. His head was pounding with the insistence of a hammer drill now, and he fought to keep from swaying. If he could disappear in the maze of machinery, confuse his pursuers –

“Or,” Tony said, “we could just break both your legs and dump you in alive. I wouldn’t mind hearing you screaming for mercy as we drowned you. I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

That didn’t sound terribly pleasant. “I’ll pass, thanks.” 

Tony nodded a bit sadly, as if he’d expected no less. “Get him, boys.”

Stu and Baldy lunged for him simultaneously. Sherlock took a step back, quickly calculated, and swung. The long, thin steel bar crashed into Baldy’s knee; Sherlock heard the exquisitely satisfying sound of cracking bone and the even lovelier music of the man’s scream before Baldy pitched forward and fell into the footer. Stu hesitated, his ludicrous shirt (topless women paddling racing canoes – charming) flapping in the muggy breeze, and Sherlock took advantage of his uncertainty to swing again. The rebar cracked against Stu’s arm, more music to Sherlock’s ear. Stu gasped and dropped to his knees, clutching his arm, his mouth moving soundlessly.

Tony Hudson gaped at the ease with which Sherlock had dispatched his henchmen. Slowly, he put a hand into his pocket, and Sherlock decided it was time to make his escape. He turned and fled into the maze of machinery, dashing behind a loader just as a bullet struck it. The report was disconcertingly loud, reverberating in his aching skull; Sherlock dropped low and scuttled through the forest of metal and rubber, looking for a hole in the fence.

Another bullet struck the nearby crane and ricocheted. Sherlock hissed and ducked even lower. _Christ!_ No time to lose. Frantically, he darted through the machines in a zig-zag pattern, listening to Hudson’s curses, his rapid breathing growing alarmingly closer, the dim screams of his now somewhat redundant assistants. There! A breach in the fence, thank God. Sherlock dove for it, wriggled underneath, tearing his jacket and trousers both, but free. He rolled down a shallow embankment, picked himself up, and took off toward the city lights.

 

*

 

Without bothering to knock, he opened the door and staggered into the house, grimly satisfied as the owner, trotting down the peach-carpeted stairs, gave a little scream. “Sherlock! You frightened the _wits_ out of me, young man.”

“Serves you right,” Sherlock snapped. “How many times have I told you to lock the door? You’re all right, aren’t you?”

“Yes, dear, of course.” Mrs. Hudson, in a dressing gown, night cream on her face, her hair pulled back beneath a silky kerchief, moved closer to Sherlock and gasped. She turned the foyer light on. “Sherlock, you’re hurt!”

“It’s nothing,” he replied, brushing the gently inquisitive fingertips away from the cut on his forehead. “Right, there isn’t a moment to waste. You have the package I gave you?”

“Dear, you’re terribly bruised – your clothes are filthy, torn – what in heaven’s name did they do to you?” Her face, under the greasy cream, tightened into a scowl. “Did Tony do it?”

“Well, his friends. Really, Mrs. Hudson, we haven’t got time.”

“How did you get here?”

“The bus. Have you no taxis here?” Really it was amazing – in a city as large and populous as Miami, taxis were remarkably few and far between. Sherlock was faintly astounded that he’d been able to find a bus. Did _everyone_ own a car?

“Not many in Coral Gables, dear.”

“Mrs. H., we have to go to the police. Now. Could you get the package?”

“Oh! Of course, dear.” Mrs. Hudson went to a lacquered cabinet, opened a door, and took out a large brown envelope. She proffered it with a smile. “There you go.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. The motion hurt. “You’re coming too.”

“Me? Sherlock, I’m in my dressing gown!”

“We’re getting out of here until I’m absolutely certain that Mr. Hudson and his friends are in custody. You have exactly three minutes to change.” Sherlock grabbed the keys to Mrs. Hudson’s Taurus wagon that hung from a peg next to the door. Go. Go!”

 

*

 

Sherlock slipped his sunglasses on against the noontime sun and slouched down in his seat. Mrs. Hudson had insisted on driving back from the police station and Sherlock was happy enough to let her. The excitement of the evening was long gone, supplanted by the tedium of endless paperwork, and his injuries, which, leaving aside the cut on his head, he’d scarcely noticed hours ago, were starting to grind and ache, and he longed for a bath and a nap. Odd, the petty little concerns that actually seemed to matter when life ground to a near-halt again.

“I still can’t quite believe it.”

Sherlock gazed listlessly at the green foliage that adorned gated community after gated community, each with its own precious name: Snapper Creek Lakes, Gables by the Sea, Hammock Oaks, each sillier than the last. “Can’t believe what?”

“Well…he _kept_ everything from me. I rather feel as if I’ve been played for a fool.”

“You _have_ been.” Sherlock said with some satisfaction. He dug a pack of Marlboros from his jacket pocket and lit up.

“Crack the window, dear,” Mrs. Hudson said. “No, what I mean is that…oh, I don’t know what I mean. I suppose it’s just that I loved him, and he’d been deceiving me all along. But he did love me, too, in his way. It’s all so complicated. I’m glad they found him, but still.”

Sherlock gave an elegant snort and exhaled a jet of smoke. “Love’s a ridiculous, over-inflated, artificial construct, Mrs. H., and you’re living proof of it. Look at you, you’re tied up in knots over a man who’s defrauded and extorted and even killed, and you feel guilty about doing your part to see that justice is done. I call that ludicrous.”

“Sherlock, have you ever been in love?”

“Waste of time.”

“Oh, no.” Mrs. Hudson smiled at him. “Oh, dear, you’re so wrong about that.”

“Am I? Doesn’t seem to have worked out too well for you.”

Mrs. Hudson’s face fell a bit. “Yes, but –“

“Oh, come on. First of all, I don’t know anyone, not one single person, whose life hasn’t been irrevocably changed for the worse by what they call love. It certainly didn’t enrich my parents’ lives, my brother’s love life, if indeed he has one, doesn’t bear speaking of, and half the people with whom I’m acquainted are in the process of divorcing or breaking up. It’s a physiological reaction, an increase in dopamine and serotonin and norepinephrine in response to a base mating instinct, and you made a muddle of things because when you were young and stupid and starry-eyed, Tony Hudson dressed well and put pomade in his hair and brought you flowers or took you to a film and waited like a gentleman until he’d got permission to grope you. Lucky, lucky you. And now he’s in prison, and you’re having second thoughts because somewhere along the line, you, like every other moron out there, convinced yourself that a surge of chemicals meant some sort of everlasting romance.” Sherlock pitched his cigarette out the window. “Rubbish.”

There was a silence, then Mrs. Hudson gave a meaningful sniff. “Some day, young man, you’re going to fall madly in love, and you’re going to think back on this conversation and laugh. And it won’t be _me_ you’re laughing at.”

Sherlock smiled, even though it hurt his face. “I’ll bet you a fiver I won’t.”

“Done.” Mrs. Hudson stuck out her hand, and they shook on it.

They pulled into the drive, and Mrs. Hudson sat still for a moment. Sherlock picked his head up from the seat rest – it felt awfully heavy – and saw her staring at him. “What?”

“Sherlock, dear,” she said softly, “about last night – I know you risked your life on my behalf, and I just wanted to say –“

“It wasn’t so much on your behalf, Mrs. Hudson, and frankly there wasn’t anything at the building site that would have incriminated them. I went as a matter of curiosity and I got caught. Careless of me, when you come right down to it.” Sherlock shrugged.

“I don’t know how you can be so cavalier.”

“Would you prefer that I fall apart? Shall I go up to that horrid pink and aqua guest room of yours and weep gently into a pillow for a few days, or would you like this case handled in a competent and efficient fashion? Because I’m a fair actor, Mrs. H. – I can dredge up a few tears if it’ll make you feel better about having your husband arrested.”

Mrs. Hudson pressed her hands to her face in a gesture of despair. “I’m trying to thank you, you silly, stupid boy.”

“Oh.” Sherlock took off his sunglasses and stared down at them for a moment. “Well, you’re most welcome. Anyway, it was a bit more challenging and a lot more interesting than the work Mycroft had me doing.”

“Impossible,” Mrs. Hudson sighed, and hurried round to the passenger door to help Sherlock out. 

He scowled at her outstretched hand. “What are you doing?”

“You’re done in, Sherlock. I’ve got eyes in my head, you know.”

“I’m fine, for God’s sake. Stop henning over me.” He got out of the car slowly, cataloguing his injuries. Aside from the cut on his head, he’d sprained his right knee, suffered some abdominal bruising from Baldy’s fists, possibly strained a tendon in his shoulder because Baldy had twisted one arm up behind his back, and he was generally scratched and dented in a dozen other places. Quite honestly, he felt like hell.

“Oh, hush. Just get inside and I’ll make us both a cuppa. We need it.” 

Mrs. Hudson put an arm around his waist, and reluctantly Sherlock leaned on her as he limped up the walk. She deposited him on the sofa. He collapsed gratefully, kicked his shoes off, and closed his eyes, glad the curtains were closed. The insistently cheery Florida weather grated on his nerves. Even the rain smacked of Disney World, excessively dramatic and heavy; it was bizarre and vaguely disturbing, like the vast motorways, the bright colours of the houses, the ridiculous garb of far, far too many people – tourists, he reckoned, but then Mr. Hudson’s leathery friend Stu had worn that absurd shirt….

“Here we are, then.” Mrs. Hudson set a tray down on the table. “I can make you a fry-up after you’ve had this, if you like.”

Sherlock regarded the tea and toast dubiously. “I prefer the crust removed.”

“There’s a knife beside the plate,” Mrs. Hudson said, bustling back into the kitchen.

Sulkily, Sherlock set to cutting the crusts off. “Haven’t you got strawberry?”

“Just peach, love. It’s nice, try it.”

“No.” Sherlock leaned back and munched on the toast. “You’ll have to go back to England, Mrs. H. It’s not safe for you to stay here.”

“Yes, I expect so.” Mrs. Hudson came back into the living room, twisting the cap from a brown prescription bottle. She sighed and gazed at a large painting of pastel-coloured flowers over the sofa. “Pity. I rather liked having my own pool. Do you think they’ll make me come back if there’s a trial?”

“Don’t know. I’d have to check the statutes, but I don’t think they can compel you to testify. Anyway, there’s plenty of evidence without your testimony. I’ve been doing some legwork gathering information – your husband wronged a great many people, Mrs. Hudson.”

“Yes. It does seem that way.” Mrs. Hudson tipped the bottle into her hand. “Take one of these, dear.”

“What is it?”

“Vicodin. I had them for my hip operation. They’re still fine.”

Sherlock took the pill from her outstretched hand. “I suppose one won’t hurt.” He popped it in his mouth, washed it down with a swallow of tea, and stretched out his legs. It probably wouldn’t help him sleep, but it might take the edge off the pain.

“Do you want that fry-up, dear?”

“No. I want a bath and a sleep.” And, he reflected, he wanted to be on a plane bound for London as soon as possible. A dreary sensation of anticlimax was growing stronger in his limbic system, and Florida had long lost its novelty.

Mrs. Hudson sat in the chair opposite him. “Why don’t you have the sleep first, dear? I’d hate to have you drown in the bathtub. It’s quite big.” She sighed again. “I’ll miss that too. It had a Jacuzzi in it. Rather soothing, a Jacuzzi. I suppose they’ll start seizing everything in short order.”

“Probably,” Sherlock replied indifferently.

“Well, the Baker Street place is all mine, at least. I won’t be homeless.”

“I’d start packing today, if I were you.”

“Won’t that look odd?”

“Not as odd as the way you’d look with a bullet hole in your head, Mrs. H., if one of Tony’s pals comes gunning for you,” Sherlock replied.

“Oh, dear….” Mrs. Hudson knotted her fingers together.

Sherlock yawned. “Not to worry. I shouldn’t think he’ll work out that you were involved in any way for a while yet, if at all. Still, better safe than sorry.” He stretched out on the sofa and arranged a scratchily embroidered throw pillow under his head. “You might as well get some sleep.” He closed his eyes, conscious that Mrs. Hudson still sat across from him, her brow creased in anxiety. The Vicodin hadn’t kicked in, but he was pleasantly tired, and he felt himself drifting.

The doorbell rang, and he heard Mrs. Hudson’s voice, and another voice, a light tenor, young, with a note of pleading. Satisfied that it wasn’t a hired assassin, Sherlock dropped into a deep sleep.

 

*

 

“His name’s Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, and he says there’s evidence with Miami PD already. You’ve got to help me, the fucking cops are probably on their way.” Tony Hudson’s voice reverberated with raw panic. “For Christ’s sake, Jim, are you listening to me?”

“Calm down. I’m going to give you an address. You and your boys go there and lay low awhile.” Jim massaged his eye with the heel of his hand; a headache, the kind that felt like icepicks driving into his brain, was blossoming behind his eyes. “Don’t worry about anything.” 

“All right. Okay. Th—“

Jim rang off and stared at the phone. “Stupid fuckwit,” he whispered. “Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid fuckwit.” Gently, he placed the mobile on the coffee table and gazed at it. “Oh, sooo stupid,” he trilled in a hitching half-moan, and a beatific smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Now you’ve done it. Trip-trap, trip-trap.”

He knew someone had been sniffing around. He’d seen the evidence, but he hadn’t paid close enough attention. Sherlock Holmes. The name….

There had been watchers. Homeless kids, spaced-out trisexual clubbers, skateboarders, vagrants and junkies, and he hadn’t paid attention. A mistake. 

He clenched his fists until red crescents decorated both palms.

A bright moon shone into his penthouse, washing his things with silver. Pretty things, luxurious, put together by a designer who’d been all sweetness and flirtation at first, but as time passed, he’d grown uncomfortable and wary.

People often did, eventually, and it made them afraid, but that was all right. Short doses of Jim Moriarty was all most anyone could take, because he was too much for ordinary people, because he yielded to compulsions too strong to deny, because after a while, if he lingered too long in any one place, even ordinary people began to see the changeling behind his eyes, they could smell the wolf in the pack of sheep, but that was all right too. They didn’t know _why_ he made them nervous – not really, because Jim Moriarty, on the face of things, was no threat; there was nothing about him that cried _predator_ , no visible claws or fangs, and so when he drew a game out, watching their mounting distress and confusion as they ignored the sensible low mutter of instinct that told them to get away, _get away_ , oh God it was really quite something to watch.

So the designer had lingered, and Jim had watched, and waited, and when the designer (lumpy old queen, amphetamine habit, but good taste, Jim had to give him that) had tried his own brand of extortion, Jim had waited for a nice, dark, warm night, and had the designer taken to Shark Valley in the Everglades. Silly name, Shark Valley; they should have called it Alligator Valley, because there were so _many_ of the critters hanging around, just waiting for a nice, plump piece of screaming, bleeding meat.

But Jim was grateful to the designer for setting him up in a really very attractive pad. He looked around with a contented little smile, storing it up, and then closed his eyes and opened a door.

It was black, and silent, and dismay and terror and fury hung in the air like clinging cobwebs. He never brushed them aside; he let them drift against his skin, feather-light, enveloping him like a second skin that never itched nor chafed, but settled against him comfortably as he travelled, waiting to be needed. There were dark treasures in this place, carefully enshrined memories stored away, and if there was a smell – a wet, awful smell, like mould and ancient newspapers with baffled headlines (Arson Claims Seven Lives, A Mother’s Tragedy, Couple Found In Leeds Basement) and discarded clothing stained with the panic-stricken sweat of final moments and a deeper, more dreadful smell; anyone following him down into the cellar would draw back at it as if they’d touched a writhing heap of serpents – if there was a smell, it was accomplishment, it was success after success, better than any balance sheet or favourable stock report. It kept him alive; it prevented the ennui that always scrabbled at the edges of his consciousness and reminded him that the little treasures made the smell worth it. The smell limned his world in gilt-edged misery and fear, black and glowing gold, exquisitely, painfully beautiful.

And here was a box, smelling of chlorine and leather and the rich tang of pain and terror. He stopped, knelt, opened it. Mocking laughter spilled out as if it were a malign music box, but he held it open, gazed through, gritted his teeth against the laughter.

_Small and poor and foreign, that’s what he had been. Paddy, wee faggot Paddy, cheap clothes, cheap shoes. Pushing him in the halls, down a short flight of stairs. Nothing to permanently damage, only to humiliate and hurt, but it was enough. More than enough._

_That first time, it had been more exhilarating, more terrifying than anything he’d experienced before. Watching him dive in awkwardly, waiting, waiting, waiting, and then the choked noises that nobody had noticed at first, and he’d watched from the top of the bleacher bank, hot and cold and shivering with excitement. The screams as he’d flailed, the lifeguard looking fruitlessly for his long hook (top of the bleacher bank, life preserver same) and diving in, Carl’s pale, lifeless body. Tragic Carl Death, the papers had said. Tragic, so tragic, so young._

_And then a hiccup – someone had twigged. About the shoes. Another kid, of all people, not a copper, not Carl’s distraught and grieving parents._

_Sherlock Holmes._

“There you are,” Jim murmured.

 

*

 

The mall, at six in the morning, was already bustling with senior citizens in shapeless flowered polyester, lurching along in the name of exercise, trying to stave off death for a few more years. Hopeless. He had a half-sympathetic urge to fix up an explosion to take out half the mall and help the poor sods toward their inevitable destination. They smiled at him, nodded approvingly; nice to see the younger generation up with the birds as well. Why, it wasn’t even seven o’clock yet – the sunrise was still a violent conflagration of pink, orange, and gold at the horizon, gradually fading into a blue sky, visible from the broad windows of the mall. Jim smiled back meekly, modestly, and went to a telephone booth.

“Hi. This is the non-emergency line, right? Well, just so you know, Tony Hudson and his friends are hiding out in Kendall. Here’s the address.” Jim laid it out clearly and concisely. No point in repeating himself. “Good luck – bye!”

He hung up the phone and stared at it for a moment. “Trip-trap, Tony. You’re going to be gobbled up.”

 

*

 

Jim hitched up the frayed, knotted-together strap of his backpack and rang the doorbell. A tired-looking woman opened it and blinked at him. “Hello. Oh, dear, are you one of Sherlock’s friends?” She looked him up and down, taking in his dirty t-shirt, his threadbare jeans, his tattered trainers.

“More of a friend of a friend. Is he here? Could I talk to him?” 

“He’s asleep, dear. Perhaps you could come back a bit later?“ 

As the woman (Mrs. Hudson. Tony’s own wife had helped to rat him out and Tony knew bugger-all about it. Oh, God, it was priceless) shook her head and began to close the door, Jim gave her a look of passionate, helpless appeal that would have done credit to a Save the Children telly advert and let tears come into his eyes. “Please…please. It’s just that…Smitty told me Sherlock might be able to help me. A friend of mine was stabbed last night, and he’d been helping Sherlock out, and I just thought Sherlock might know something about the guys who did it. I’m just –“ Jim swiped at his eyes. “I’ve been up all night, at the hospital, you know, and I’m beat, but if I could just talk to him for a minute….” Jim covered his face.

“Oh, dear, oh dear….” Mrs. Hudson stepped outside and closed the door behind her. “It’s just that Sherlock’s been up all night as well, and he – well, he caught the men who’ve been causing all the…er, trouble.”

 _Not without my help, you stupid cunt._ “Really? Oh, God, that’s great to hear.” Jim wiped at his eyes again and flashed a grateful smile.

“He’s a bit worse for wear, though, poor lamb. I just gave him a little something to help him sleep, and I’m afraid he’s out for a while.”

Jim held up his hands, palm out. “I get it. I totally get it. Look, I can come back. I’d have him come and meet me, but –“ He shrugged, biting his lower lip. “Can’t say I have a permanent address or anything.”

Mrs. Hudson clicked her tongue and shook her head sadly. “I understand, dear.” She hesitated a moment. “I can make you some sandwiches, if you like. It isn’t much, but –“

“God, no.” Jim tightened his facial muscles to feign a blush. “That’s really nice of you, but –“

“Not at all, dear. Come in for a moment, I’ll wrap them up for you. Be sure not to disturb Sherlock, though – he’s on the sofa. Couldn’t even make it up to his room. Not that he’s fond of that room, but honestly, where else was I supposed to put him?”

“You sure I won’t be bothering him?”

“Oh, he’s out cold,” Mrs. Hudson said cheerfully. “Still, best not to wake him. He’s had a rather rough night of it.”

“Thanks. That’s really, really sweet of you.” Jim followed Mrs. Hudson into the house, getting a fleeting impression of pastel colours and lots of wicker – hideous – and then his gaze fell upon the figure lying supine on the sofa.

“Do you need the loo, dear? Oh, what was your name?”

“It’s Jim, ma’am, and I’m fine, thanks.”

“Right. Well, just have a seat and I’ll be back in just a mo.” Mrs. Hudson bustled off to the kitchen, and Jim was left alone with Sherlock.

Moving silently, catlike, Jim crossed the room to the sofa. “So…you’re Sherlock Holmes.” Carefully, he crouched down and tilted his head to examine Sherlock’s face. “Oh. Oh yes. I remember you now, dear. You haven’t changed all that much, have you? Got a bit prettier….” He reached out and tenderly brushed an errant curl from Sherlock’s forehead, where a cut blazed vivid crimson. “But not much brighter,” he whispered. “It was so very easy to find you. You disappoint me a little, I have to say.”

Sherlock slumbered on, his face peaceful in repose. Peaceful and _quite_ pretty, in its way. 

Jim smiled. In retrospect, he saw the net that Sherlock had tightened around Tony, the tiny security breakdowns here and there, the spying, using his wife – now _that_ was clever, almost diabolical. He approved heartily, even if he should have been paying closer attention. That was twice now that Sherlock had upset things; nobody had come close, not even once. A coincidence, perhaps? Jim did have his finger in so _many_ pies.

“Trip-trap.”

It was a novel thought, someone smart enough to sift through so much debris to discover a thread or two of silk, a positively delightful idea to contemplate. And here was the perpetrator, asleep, no, _drugged_ , he could tell, as helpless as helpless could be. Jim could do anything to him he liked. Kill the old cunt in the kitchen, drive Holmes away in the back of the Taurus, and he wouldn’t awaken for an hour at least, and by then he’d be safely restrained, and Jim could play.

Made his cock hard, just thinking about it.

Jim reached out and touched Sherlock Holmes’ pretty, pouting mouth. _Not yet._

He’d let this one breathe for a while. He’d watch, and wait.

And then he’d play.

His heart filled with music, shredded strings and broken timpani. He rose to his feet silently and walked out, leaving the door wide open.

 

*

 

“We are all as safe as we want to be.”

Jim’s mobile chirped. He looked down, smiling in expectation.

_Wrong!_

Right.

He caressed the word on the screen affectionately.

_Well, darling. Shall we dance?_

*


	6. Thirty-four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to kimberlite for setting my feet on the path to geological truth.

*

6\. Thirty-four

They’d promised him a beating, but Sherlock was reasonably certain that if it didn’t happen within the next twenty minutes, it wasn’t going to happen at all, because in twenty minutes, give or take a few, he’d be dead.

 

*

 

“Mr. Holmes? Dr. Watson? This way, please.” 

Sherlock nodded briefly to the young woman who ushered them through the rear corridors of the National Gallery and walked at his own pace, allowing her and John to zoom ahead. Lacking any other sensory stimulation save the cool chemical aroma of HVAC systems working overtime to preserve the art from the perpetual London damp, he watched the young woman (heels perilously high, brand new, expensive, out of her price range judging by the rest of her clothes, difficult for her to walk, gait like a Lipizzaner) as she escorted John (hair still damp, so possibly overslept – no. A crimp in the hair at the back of her neck, a dent from a pillow. Morning shag, then, overeager partner, pre-coital shower) through the hall (Agent Provocateur seamed hosiery – stockings and too-tight garter belt, from the way she shifted uncomfortably every few moments; she dressed to please her partner, not herself, then – that explained the shoes), laughing at whatever John was saying and briefly touching his arm (bitten fingernails, but not the nails of a habitual biter; these were mercilessly chewed down to the quick, sore and red. Unhappy relationship likely) and leaning close to him (makeup applied with surgical precision, fresh lipstick at eleven in the morning, fresh perfume – Chantecaille’s Frangipane. On the make, seeking new boyfriend).

“John!”

John stopped and turned round, peering at him quizzically. “What?”

“Must you walk so fast? They’re not going to leave without us, you know.”

John gave the young woman an apologetic smile and stuffed his hands in his pockets, waiting as Sherlock ambled closer. “Well, come on. You’re usually ten steps ahead of me.”

“In more ways than one.”

“Oh, ha ha.” John pivoted on his heel and started walking again. “So, sorry – who are we meeting? My friend neglected to give me all the details.” He smiled at the young woman, provoking an answering smile.

Sherlock made certain his sigh was quite audible.

“It’s a special assembly of the board of trustees. Not all of them, naturally, but some of the most prominent. Right through that door.” She beamed at John and stood still, waiting for Sherlock to catch up and clearly relieved to stop clomping around in her silly shoes. She bared her teeth at Sherlock. “They’re very much looking forward to meeting you.”

Sherlock stifled a yawn. “I’m sure they are.”

“It’s very kind of you to escort us – Juliet, was it?” John leaned a bit closer to her to read her name tag.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Sherlock muttered, _sotto voce_. John glared at him, and Sherlock affected an expression of stunned innocence. “Thank you,” he said, and sailed past the young woman to open the door to a surprisingly dim and rather cavernous room. Sherlock sniffed, detecting the odours of sodium hypochloride, beeswax, and Damar resin. It was no particular surprise to see four or five Establishment types seated at a table, but it was a surprise, and not a very pleasant one, to see Mycroft seated with them. Sherlock glared at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Mycroft offered Sherlock one of his habitual narrow smiles. “I am here to impress upon you the need for your undivided attention as well as the gravity warranted by this, ah…event.”

 _I wonder if he knows how constipated he looks when he smiles like that. I must be sure to tell him._ Possibly in just a few moments, if the need arose. “Fine. Well, you must have called me here about the Bevan Caravaggio. Let’s get on with it.”

An elderly man glanced at Mycroft in alarm. “Mr. Holmes, I thought we had agreed not to disclose –“

“He didn’t say a thing,” Sherlock interposed. “You could drop Nelson’s Column on Mycroft’s foot and he’d only give you that tightly wound little smile. No, what else could it be? No recent major acquisitions except a duplicate of the painting that belongs to Cecil Bevan, lately donated to the National Gallery by a mysterious and anonymous donor along with a letter claiming that Mr. Bevan’s Caravaggio, acquired via private sale six years ago for thirty-seven million pounds, is a fake. Loads of controversy regarding the new painting’s authenticity surrounding it already, you’re hungry for funds and publicity, so it must be something incriminating or possessing some taint of illicit or illegal behaviour, otherwise you’d be blaring the news to the press. The haste of the meeting suggests emergency, as does the presence of trustees sitting at this table. You’ve already been discussing it for two hours, judging by the drop in the level of pastries on that platter and the number of refills in your coffee cups, so it’s something that requires immediate and pressing attention.”

“Good God,” the elderly man said. He shot a nervous glance at the others seated round the table.

Mycroft rose to his feet. “My brother has a tendency toward…prolixity, Sir Neville, but he’s not indiscreet nor is he wrong-footed in his assessments, as you’ve just seen.” He stood next to Sherlock and leant close. “Stop showing off, for God’s sake,” he hissed, and straightened again, the little smile intact on his face.

“Why? Isn’t that why you summoned me?”

“I summoned you to solve this problem. Now shut up and listen.”

Sherlock looked over at John, who seemed to be biting back a laugh, and looked away quickly. 

“That’s absolutely right, Mr. Holmes,” the elderly man replied. “Heavens, it really is extraordinary…oh dear, forgive me. Neville Banister, Mr. Holmes, board chair. This is Alan Carstairs, our director. A few of our trustees – Vanessa McClure, Damian Thaxter – you’ve most likely seen his work at the Tate –“

“I’m afraid I haven’t,” Sherlock replied coolly. “You see one slapped-on daub, you’ve seen them all.” The artist’s falsely ingratiating cap-toothed smile turned into a scowl.

“Ah…Lady Somerset, Parminder Bose, Michael Winick, and of course, Cecil Bevan.”

Sherlock nodded shortly. “So what’s happened?”

“Well, you’re right, I’m afraid,” Banister said. “There is a crisis regarding the Caravaggio – or, rather, the _challenged_ painting. It’s been stolen, in a rather clever and fiendish scheme, and we’d like you to retrieve it without attracting the attention of the press.”

“And why don’t you want the attention of the press?” John inquired. “Usually that’s a big deal, a theft – sells lots of papers, gets you media attention.”

“That’s true,” Banister acknowledged. “Unfortunately, media attention in this case would only prove chaotic. Support for the arts is shaky enough without some scurrilous reports on the inability of the National Gallery to protect its works. Also…well, you see, we believe that there was some assistance from…a close source, let us say.”

“An inside job?” John asked.

“Precisely.” Banister sighed. He flipped a switch, flooding the space with light, and gestured Sherlock and John toward a painting hanging on the wall. It was fairly large, about one by two metres, and depicted a fair-haired, golden-skinned young man lounging against a background of scarlet and umber, wearing the briefest of loincloths. A half-eaten bunch of dates drooped from one eloquent hand, and an overturned bottle nudged at one long, bare foot. The young man was looking directly at the viewer, his expression half-challenging, half amused contempt.

“Handsome bloke,” John murmured.

“The artist evidently thought so,” Sherlock said in an equally low voice. “Look. Damp patch strategically placed on the loincloth.”

“Sherlock!” John hissed. “Come on, the thing’s four hundred years old.”

“Sexual congress is not a recent phenomenon, John.” 

John elbowed Sherlock in the ribs. “So this one’s yours, Mr. Bevan?” John asked.

Cecil Bevan got to his feet. He was a smooth, bland-looking man in his mid-forties, well-tailored suit over a gymnasium body, manicure, expensive haircut, sweat at the temples and beginning to bead his upper lip. “Yes, it’s mine.”

“Mr. Bevan is on our board as well,” Lady Somerset said with a graceful backward motion of her hand. “When the second Caravaggio was presented to us, we requested that he bring the original in for comparative study. Unfortunately, the newly donated painting was stolen the very next day – yesterday in fact – so only very cursory evaluations were made.”

Sherlock bent close to the painting. “Spectroscopic analysis?” He took out his phone to snap some photographs.

“No, please!” Bevan cried. 

Sherlock swiveled to face him. “Problem?”

“Yes, rather. You’ll never get a decent photograph without using a flash, and flash photography deteriorates paintings at a rather terrifying rate.”

“Surprised he doesn’t know that,” Thaxter mumbled, evidently still smarting from Sherlock’s remark. “Isn’t he supposed to be a genius?”

Bevan frowned at Thaxter. “I have some excellent, detailed photographs that I’m happy to give to you,” he said, plucking a package from the table and handing it to Sherlock. “Please. Those are at your disposal.”

“All right. Thank you.” Sherlock hurled a pointed smile at the artist, hunched over at the table in a deliberately unconstructed Armani suit and tinted glasses. “Flash photography tends to produce a burst of light containing both infrared heat as well as short, high-energy wavelengths of ultraviolet radiation. Both are effective at breaking chemical bonds, thus producing deterioration of the artwork.”

Thaxter blinked, then tardily recovered his composure. “In other words, you just didn’t care.”

“I wasn’t planning to use a flash, but never mind,” Sherlock replied. “Have another coffee - keep nursing your hangover. Sir Neville – analysis? Had there been any?”

“Alas, no,” Banister said. “There simply wasn’t time.”

“So what happened to the other painting?” John asked. “You said you thought it was an inside job.”

“Yes,” Banister sighed again. Very put-upon, was Sir Neville. “Two nights ago, during a routine shift change in the security centre, the outgoing guard was rendered unconscious by a taser or some other sort of paralysing…er, device, and the incoming guard….” Banister shook his head. “Disappeared.”

“Abducted?”

“Or fled with the painting. We don’t know, Mr. Holmes, hence your presence here. In addition to that debacle, the cameras were disabled until the second guard returned from his tea break. Twenty minutes, just long enough for the thief to get in and get out.”

Sherlock sat at the table and drew a photograph from the envelope. He held it close and stared at it. “You haven’t contacted the police?”

“Mr. Holmes –“ Banister indicated Mycroft – “has recommended one or two superior members of the police force. They came in and took fingerprints, that sort of thing. They understand that it’s a…a discreet investigation at the moment, of necessity.”

“Lestrade?” Sherlock asked Mycroft, who simply nodded.

“Quite right,” Sherlock said. “Apart from him, the Met has more _Daily Mail_ stringers than they know what to do with.”

“Can you find the painting, Mr. Holmes?” Bevan said, a pleading note in his voice. “There’s quite a lot at stake here.”

“Your reputation, for one,” Sherlock said. He gave Bevan a hard stare.

“My reputation,” Bevan agreed.

“Your –“ John frowned. “Ah. Because if the press got wind of it, they might imply you orchestrated the whole scheme.”

“Just so,” Bevan said. “You see, gentlemen, I have no doubt that mine is the authentic Caravaggio. I have the chemical analysis – all the paperwork, all of it, proving that it’s what it seems to be. There are copies in that envelope; feel free to examine them at your leisure. But if that second painting isn’t found, then –“ He folded his hands together. “Then my integrity is at stake. As an entrepreneur, I can buy and sell a dozen Caravaggios. As an art lover, my integrity is all I have.”

Sherlock made a _moue_ of mild disgust and noticed that Mycroft was doing the same. He scowled ferociously at his brother, who returned the scowl with vigor. “I’ll need to see the security centre right away. I don’t expect you’ve roped it off since the incident occurred.”

“No,” Lady Somerset said with a withering look. “We _do_ have to keep a sharp eye on our other work.”

“After what happened, I’ve no doubt that’s your principal interest at the moment.” Sherlock rose to his feet and moved close to John, who was still standing in front of the painting. “John?”

“Mm?”

“Developing an interest in art?”

“I’ve always liked art,” John countered mildly.

“Since when?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, you know,” John replied.

“Doubt it. Come on.” Sherlock tugged at John’s arm, and they followed Sir Neville to a lift that took them to the security section. They entered a room with banks of monitors and two uniformed guards sitting in front of them. “Get out.”

John shot Sherlock a glare. 

Sherlock frowned. _What?_

John closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “Sorry, lads. Could we just borrow this room for a minute? We won’t be long.”

One of the guards peered at Banister, who nodded, and they made their way out of the room, glancing over their shoulders at Sherlock, who ignored them and flicked on the row of switches, brightening the room to the intensity of an operating theatre.

“Probably two dozen people have been in and out of here since the theft,” Sherlock grumbled. “We’ll be lucky if we find anything useful at all.” He stared at the banks of monitors. “You said they disabled the cameras all at once, Sir Neville?”

“That’s right.”

Sherlock bent close to the banks. “Has to be a kill switch up here, then. Some telltale sign –“

“Or they just unplugged them,” John suggested.

Sherlock straightened and stared at John for a moment. “Right. Good.” He scanned the bank quickly. “Yes, that’s possible. Let’s have a look.” He threw open a door, revealing a little room with stacks of blinking electronics, and crouched close to the floor. “They should be hoovering in here with some regularity, to keep the equipment dust-free.” Sherlock drew a finger along a panel and examined it.

“Pretty clean,” John said.

“Yes. Except….” Sherlock removed his gloves, then traced his fingers upon the tiled floor and showed John the white tips. “Noticeable amount of dust. And only in front of the power switches. Look, it’s clean on either side.”

“It’s pale. Drywall, maybe? Or they were replacing lights in the ceiling?” John glanced up at the polystyrene-board tile.

Sherlock rubbed his fingers together. “No. Chalk.”

“Chalk?” John drew a finger through the dust on the floor and smiled a little. “Are we looking for a schoolteacher?”

Sherlock inspected the power switches. “A bit here, too. Quite a lot on the floor, considering. Far more than any average teacher should be carrying about.” He pulled a sterile petri dish from his pocket and handed it to John. “Sweep a bit of that up for me, John. Try not to get too much other dust into the dish.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to have another look at your handsome bloke.”

Mycroft was alone in the conservators’ wing, standing in front of the painting and examining it. “Why are you hanging about?” Sherlock demanded.

“I remained behind to remind you of the seriousness of this assignment. I think the board is not at all convinced that you’ll be discreet. Mr. Bevan was particularly concerned.”

Sherlock bent low and examined the floor beneath the painting, brushing his fingertips against it and scrutinising them. He scowled, disappointed at their dustless surface, then leaned close to the canvas and sniffed at it. “Interesting,” he muttered. “But of course you convinced them that I would be, brother dear. Do they think I run to the tabloids with every case I get?”

“Your growing notoriety makes some of them uneasy. And frankly, insulting one of Britain’s most respected contemporary artists did little to endear you to them.”

“He’s a fraud, hasn’t done any of his own painting in fifteen years. His assistants do all the work, and he sits on his arse and collects the cheques. You can tell by the state of his hands. Make yourself useful, Mycroft – help me get this thing off the wall.”

Mycroft looked scandalised. “We can’t just heave it off the wall, Sherlock.”

“Why not? Somebody had to heave it on, didn’t they? Come on, get on the other side. Look, it’s not mounted properly at all. No wonder things get stolen. Should be a cinch.” Together they grasped the gilded wooden frame and eased it from its makeshift mounting, setting it gingerly on the floor. “Hang on to it,” Sherlock instructed, and slipped round the back of the painting. He touched the wooden framework, bent low to inspect the bottom of the piece, and grinned. “Thought so.” He whipped out his jackknife and cut a thin sliver from the lower right corner of the frame.

“What?”

John came back into the conference room. “Sherlock, I’ve got the –“ He stopped dead and stared at Sherlock and Mycroft. “Please tell me you are not defacing a thirty-seven million pound painting. Jesus. Are there cameras in here?” He stared anxiously at the upper corners of the room.

“Calm yourself, John,” Mycroft said. “He’s not harming the painting or its structural integrity. He wouldn’t _dare_. Would you, Sherlock?” The faintest hint of unease tinged his voice.

“Certainly not. But I doubt this is the authentic painting.” Sherlock straightened and showed John the sliver of wood. “I think it’s been treated to look as if it is, though.”

John took the sliver. “But what about the authentication – everything Bevan said?”

“Yes.” Sherlock examined his fingertips. “Intriguing, though, that there are chalk deposits in the corners of this painting as well as the security centre upstairs.” He bent once more, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and carefully dusted the lower corners of the painting, catching as much of the chalk as he could.

“A visiting lecturer?” John suggested. “Someone who gave a talk here and had access?”

“Maybe. We’ll find out. Let’s get this thing back on the wall.” Sherlock, John, and Mycroft replaced the painting, and all three stood back to examine it. “It’s a good forgery, if it is one,” Sherlock said. He took out his phone and snapped photographs. “Who needs a flash, anyway?” 

“It’s beautiful,” John said quietly.

Sherlock glanced at John, but John seemed absorbed in the painting.

“Indeed it is,” Mycroft said. “Have you any theories yet, Sherlock?”

“Two or three, but as I pride myself on my discretion, I’m not letting you in on either of them. Come along, John, we’ve got to have a look at the storage room where the second Caravaggio was stolen and then find an art supply shop. Good day, Mycroft.”

 

*

 

The night was bitterly cold; sleet and rain pattered against the window in a pleasant counterpoint to the ragged snatches of the Mozart adagio (Köchel 261 – not one of his favorites, but it seemed appropriate this evening) that Sherlock played lazily as he toasted his bare feet beside the fire.

“Do you know you wriggle your toes when you play?” John asked, setting a cup of tea on the table and settling into the chair opposite Sherlock.

“Helps me think.” Sherlock coaxed soft beauty from the strings, conscious of John’s gaze upon him. It was pleasant to play for John; he listened serenely, content that he’d derive enjoyment from whatever Sherlock played. The greed of expectation never entered the equation. It was really very…restful.

When Sherlock finished, John neither applauded nor praised him nor asked for more, but his dark blue eyes shone a little brighter than before, and his posture was relaxed. “So what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I’m going to have a look at that chalk and sliver of wood tomorrow. You’re not working, are you?”

“Of course I’m working. It’s Friday.” John sipped at his tea. “I only joined you today because I had a gap in my schedule.”

“Most people call that lunch.”

“Surprised _you_ would. And most people don’t work at a surgery anyway,” John said. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of one hand. “I’m knackered as it is. What did you need?”

“Thought you might pop over to the National Gallery library and do a bit of research for me. There’s a Caravaggio monograph by Puglisi that I’d like to get my hands on. Maybe since you’re working, you can just pick it up for me.”

“I don’t think they lend.”

“Work it out, John.” Sherlock scratched behind his ear with the bow.

John gave Sherlock one of his long-suffering looks. “Aren’t you planning to go out?”

“No, I have a few things I need to do. You don’t mind, do you?”

“You’ve already got me running other errands, so I suppose not,” John sighed, and got to his feet. “I’m all in. Good night, Sherlock.”

“Good night, John. Sleep well.” That earned him a tired little hand-wave, and he watched John until he’d left the room. Strange, the sudden loss he felt nowadays whenever John wasn’t around, the odd, bereft silence left behind when John trudged up to bed or dashed out of the flat in the mornings. Companionship had once meant very little to him; exactly when, he wondered, had that changed?

He frowned. “Sentiment,” he whispered, and drew his bow across the strings once more, in time to the pattering rain.

 

*

 

“Right, I’m off. See you tonight.” John shrugged into his coat and pulled a woolly knitted cap down over his ears. He stood still for a moment and sighed. “Okay, see you later, John, have a good day, thanks for fetching my dry cl –“

“It’s French.”

John paused in the act of winding a scarf round the neck of his parka. “What’s French?”

“The chalk we collected. It’s European, French specifically. Traces of glacial sediment, fragments of belemnite fossils – the sample is particular to northeastern France. Abundant in the Champagne region and produces grapes with a high acid content.”

“So we’re looking for a French…lecturer?”

“I wonder.” Sherlock placed the tips of his fingers together. “Inside job, missing guard, French chalk. Can you stop by MacBurney’s and pick up some scones?”

“Can I – Sherlock, it’s five tube stops in the opposite direction!” John tied his scarf. “Aren’t you going out at all today?”

“I wasn’t planning to.” Sherlock looked up from the kitchen table, laden with eggs, turpentine, containers of water, liquid and cold-pressed linseed oil, poppy oil, Venetian balsam, and a dozen miniature canvases. “Why do you bother with a scarf if you’re just going to wind it around your coat, John?”

“I like it this way.”

“Suit yourself.” Sherlock took a pair of tongs, picked up a test tube stuffed with a clear-wax cylinder, and held it over the Bunsen burner. “Some of that clotted cream they sell there would be lovely too.” He turned the flame up a bit and saw via peripheral vision that John was staring at him. Humming the first few bars of _Spiegel Im Spiegel_ , he tilted the tube gently, watching the wax warm and liquefy.

“Fine. Fine. No sultanas.”

“Very good, you remembered.”

“Yeah – it wasn’t so much that I remembered, Sherlock, as it was the fact that I spent three days picking squashed sultanas from the rug.”

“I don’t like the texture. It’s like eating dried eyeballs.”

“I sort of worked that out, but you could have deposited them on the plate. The table, a book…anywhere but the floor, really.” John opened the refrigerator (his gaze avoiding, Sherlock noticed, the shelf that held the tray of ears – honestly, as a doctor, one would have thought he’d be less squeamish) and pulled out a brown paper sack. “Dried eyeballs…good God. Next time I’m just leaving them.”

“But as you’ve cleverly remembered that I don’t like them, there won’t be a next time. Well done. I could use a new propane tank as well.”

“Right.” John dropped the paper sack on the table. “I’ll make a list. Jesus….”

“What for? I’ve only asked you to get scones and cream and propane. I didn’t think it would be all that taxing.”

“Yeah, but lest we forget – or rather lest _I_ forget, I’ve also got to get that monograph, your dry cleaning, some logs for the fireplace, _and_ something to eat for tonight, unless you want to barbecue those bloody ears in the fridge.”

“We’ll get takeaway,” Sherlock murmured, pouring the liquid wax into a dish holding fifteen millilitres of turpentine. “My treat. Pad Thai?” He looked up at John and smiled. Poor man was probably overheating in his parka and hat and silly striped scarf – a gift from Harry, who had gurgled something nonsensical about Dr. Who when she’d given it to him.

John’s frown deepened. “Pad Thai. Are you trying to butter me up, you sneaky bugger?”

“Is it working?”

“Actually, yes. Found my weak spot.” John grinned wryly. “I may have to kill you now.” He moved toward the door.

“Your secret is safe with me.” Sherlock turned his attention back to the dish of wax and turpentine. He picked up an egg, broke it into a bowl, and deftly separated the yolk with his fingers, dropping it into the wax-and-turpentine dish. “Stay warm, John. Rotten weather out there.” Sherlock wiped his hands on a tea towel he’d appropriated from Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen and selected a glass stirring rod from the mess on the table.

“Right. Okay. Thanks.” John paused. “See you later, then. Don’t leave those eggs out, they’ll stink.”

Sherlock didn’t look up, but he heard the smile in John’s voice, and then the soft click of the closing door. He felt a rather moronic grin breaking out on his own face and sternly applied himself to whisking the turpentine, wax, and egg into a thick yellowish soup.

For the past week or so (seventeen days, not that he was counting) he’d found himself gravitating toward the kitchen just before John left for work. Well, why not? He was up already, and John usually made enough coffee for both of them, and it was a chance to chat a bit before John left him for the day. Left for the day. Also, it was useful to catch John on the way out in the morning – he was generally groggy and ever so slightly more biddable than he was in the evening, so he was more likely to accept sundry errands. Though Sherlock could scarcely fathom why John needed to write the errands down; he seldom asked John to do more than three things in a single day.

Already the flat felt empty and dreary, but Sherlock gave himself a mental shake; he had enough to keep himself occupied for a while yet. Eventually, he’d have to get dressed and run to Bart’s if he wanted a really thorough analysis on the wood sliver he’d nicked, if only to confirm his suspicions. It was still cold outside, and the rain had turned to snow; wretched weather. The analysis could wait until tomorrow. 

He got up, stretched, and noticed the paper sack on the table. Peering into it, he saw a wrapped sandwich and a plastic bag filled with carrot sticks – John’s lunch. He’d be peevish about leaving his lunch behind. Sherlock considered texting him to let him know, then decided against it. Maybe he’d get dressed and wander down to the surgery later, bag in hand. Maybe he’d even go to the library himself. John would be delighted, positively swooning with gratitude.

Sherlock picked up the dish of wax, turpentine, and egg, and wandered to the window. The snow was coming down thick and fast now, and people walking along Baker Street hunched against it, protecting themselves with umbrellas and raised hoods. The notion of fetching and carrying John’s lunch suddenly lost most of its lustre. Maybe he’d order John a Pad Thai for lunch and have it delivered, and they could go somewhere decent for dinner. 

_Not bad_ , he congratulated himself. He went back to the table and, picking up a paintbrush, applied a layer of the yellowish soup to one of the canvases he’d covered with oil paint earlier in the morning. It would have been better to use paint that he’d prepared himself, pigment and linseed oil, but the commercial stuff would do in a pinch. The smell that had come from that canvas….

It would take a few hours for the stuff to dry. Sherlock yawned, went to the fire, poked at it desultorily, and sent John a text:

_Don’t forget the logs for the fire. Hardwood preferable. SH_

The reply came a few moments later.

_DID I LEAVE MY LUNCH ON THE TABLE?_

Sherlock smiled.

_Yes. Don’t worry. SH_

_RIGHT._

A grin spread over Sherlock’s face. Leave it to John to imbue a single word with such resignation. He set his phone down, pulled a woolly plaid blanket from a chair, and curled up on the sofa for a nap, oddly comforted by the dark skies and falling snow.

He awoke at a sharp rap on the door, and blinked; impossible to tell how much time had passed, as the snow occluded the sun almost entirely, eliminating shadows and casting a soft grey pall over the flat. He stumbled up resentfully and rubbed at his eyes as he went to the door. He’d been deeply asleep, and loathed the sensation of a rude awakening. Before opening the door he peered into the kitchen and saw his egg mixture, still glossy, in a semi-liquid state; he’d only been asleep for a few hours at most, then. 

He opened the door and flung a vicious scowl at the three men in suits and topcoats. “Yes?”

“Mr. Holmes?” One of the men smiled and extended a hand. “Mark Fellowes, with the National Gallery. Your landlady let us in.”

“Is that a fact? That was thoughtful of her.” Sherlock looked down at the extended hand and shook it. Left-handed, ring on index finger, hard callus on the heel. “The National Gallery, you say.”

“That’s right. I’m one of the conservators. A grunt, really.” The man smiled, exposing brilliant white teeth. “Sir Neville sent us by to see how you were getting on and if you needed anything.”

“He sent an entire committee?” Sherlock’s scowl deepened, and then an idea occurred to him. “Actually, you _can_ help. I need a monograph from the archives, and –“ He stopped as his gaze fell downward and halted at the men’s shoes and trouser cuffs. Decent shoes, trousers well-made, hardly damp, so they hadn’t had to wait long for a taxi. But that fine white dust accumulating in their cuffs and the creases of their shoes wasn’t snow.

_French chalk, but they didn’t come from France, they’re all English, indicated by their clothes, the man who spoke had a distinct Estuary accent, Penhaligon cologne – no, not French. But the chalk! Who would have chalk on their trousers, and so bloody much of it? Grapes, soil, Champagne OH GOD._

Bevan. Cecil Bevan, the entrepreneur, millionaire, art connoisseur, Lockheed owner, wine enthusiast. Lavish mode of living featured two years ago in the Sunday _Times_. Had a specially built cellar for his Champagnes – chalk blocks, painstakingly carved and fitted, imported from Epernay at tremendous and vulgar expense. Cecil Bevan, who treasured his integrity, who didn’t want the Caravaggio photographed, who’d sweated in a chilly room, who’d been particularly concerned, according to Mycroft, about Sherlock being asked to solve the case.

And come to think of it, Mrs. Hudson breakfasted and shopped with friends on Friday mornings. A little snow wouldn’t have kept her from it. Ergo, these men had forced their way inside. _Hard callus on the heel of the hand, and no trace of chemical stain. Conservator, my arse._

A hard wariness crept up Sherlock’s spine. He fixed a smile on his face. “Right. So I need some things from the archives. I’ll make a list if you can procure them for me.”

The man placed his hand on the door, pushing it open a bit wider. “Well, we’re not here for that sort of help, Mr. Holmes, to be strictly honest.”

“I see.” Sherlock took a step backward. “If you _were_ to be strictly honest –“

Another man drew a Tokarev with an attached custom suppressor and pointed it at Sherlock’s chest. “If we were to be strictly honest, Mr. Holmes, we’d say it’s best to come quietly.”

“Said the actress to the bishop,” Sherlock replied coolly, taking another step backward. Nowhere to go. If he could get his hands on something, disarm them – they probably _all_ had weapons, damn it. “Mr. Bevan wants a word with me, does he?”

“He said you were bright,” the first man said approvingly. The three men entered the flat and closed the door behind them. “Prove it and don’t do anything stupid or make any noise.”

Sherlock backed up until his backside hit the kitchen table. He grasped the edges and surreptitiously pulled the dish of egg, turpentine, and wax toward the edge with his little finger. “Why can’t he just come here and have a word with me himself? Why send you lot?”

“He’s concerned, Mr. Holmes. Very concerned indeed.”

“Concerned that I’ll figure out that he was in on this scheme from the very start and spill everything. Sort of redundant to worry about that at this point, isn’t it? Bevan showed his hand a bit too early, I think. Not very bright.” Sherlock moved his fingers, and the dish tipped over. “Damn it!” He lifted his hand from the mess in exaggerated disgust.

“Leave it. Let’s go.”

“Let me wipe my hand off, at least. This stuff pongs.” Sherlock reached for the tea towel and hastily traced three words on the cover of his laptop. The hard tip of the suppressor suddenly dug into the scant flesh below his shoulder blade. He froze. Had they seen?

“No sudden movements, Mr. Holmes. Come on now. Turn around.”

Sherlock slowly grasped the towel and pivoted on his heel. He wiped the mixture off his fingers with an air of nonchalance. “So what if I decide I don’t want to come?”

The man with the Tokarev held it close to Sherlock’s chest. “What do you think?”

Reaching behind him, his fingers desperately skittering for something to use as a weapon, Sherlock said, “I think you’ve got me outgunned, certainly, but –“ A huge, pulsing bolt of pain shuddered through his body as one of the other men drew something from his pocket and pressed it against Sherlock’s chest. He dropped to his knees, gasping, and felt himself hauled up. His head lolled backward; he saw a stain on the ceiling, the result of a months-old experiment he’d meant to clean up and then deleted. 

“Let’s go. Quick, for fuck’s sake.”

 _Easy prey_ , Sherlock cursed himself. _Idiot._ He made an attempt to wriggle from the hands grasping at him, but it did no good at all. He opened his mouth to cry out, but a rather alarming groan emerged instead of a healthy yell. He could do no more than crumple bonelessly against the men carrying him out of the flat and down the stairs. The wet chill of snow struck the soles of his bare feet as they hauled him into the street. Snow fell into his eyes, his nose, his stupidly gaping mouth before he was propelled toward a waiting car and his head flopped forward on his neck. 

Sherlock let out another guttural cry, but no-one heard him, and there wasn’t so much as a murmured remark about why three men in suits were dragging another man in t-shirt, pyjama bottoms, and a dressing gown toward a car. Baker Street was mostly empty, true, but still, someone must have seen, someone in a shop, somewhere….

They shoved him into the car, and as the vehicle pulled out into exceedingly light traffic, rough hands pulled a wide band of dark fabric over his eyes and tied it tightly. Another pair of hands shoved him forward, his forehead to his knees, and bound his wrists behind his back. _Why bother?_ Sherlock wondered. _I know where we’re headed._ “Overkill,” he tried to say, but it emerged as another moan.

The hands grasped the collar of his dressing gown and pulled him upright against the seat. “Quit whinging, Mr. Holmes. It didn’t hurt you all that much.”

 _Really? You should try it on yourself, you ignorant clot._ His angry retort came out a bit garbled.

A hand patted his thigh, accompanied by a deep, fruity chuckle. “Just relax. We’ve a way to go.”

 

*

 

They dragged him out of the car and down a flight of stone stairs. He smelled the sour tang of wine, a smoky, musty odor like ageing cured wood, and…yes, the scent of chalk. His wet, bare feet gritted against dust on the floor. The expensive cellar Bevan had built wasn’t handling the climate change very well, evidently. It was crumbling, falling apart.

He was flung into a hard wooden chair; his ankles and knees were tied together with thin nylon rope, and more rope was wound around his waist, securing him to the chair. He heard the murmur of approaching voices and the sound of leather-soled shoes on the gritty stone floor, and smelled expensive, flashy cologne – Dior Homme. 

“Mr. Holmes,” a voice said. “You must be a late riser, still in your jim-jams.”

“Sorry about that,” Sherlock said pleasantly. “Had I known I was going to be kidnapped today, I would have got out my tails.”

“That’s very funny.” 

A hand reached out and tugged the blindfold down. It fell around Sherlock’s neck, and he blinked against the light before focusing on Cecil Bevan’s face. “Mr. Bevan, you shouldn’t have panicked. It would have taken me at least another day to find out what happened to the painting. You’d have had plenty of time to be safely out of the country.” Sherlock took in the chalk cellar, two walls lined with rows and rows of bottles from floor to ceiling. The three hirelings stood behind Bevan, watching him silently. 

A spasm of anger flitted across Bevan’s face. “Right. Where the fuck is it, Holmes?”

Sherlock blinked. “The real painting, you mean. Not the replica that’s downstairs in the National Gallery.”

“How’d you figure it out?”

“Simple enough. The wood in the frame is about two hundred years old – a little early for Signor Caravaggio to have painted it. And the painting itself – you purchased the original unrestored, and it’s gone a bit yellow. Oils do – you know that, of course, an art connoisseur like yourself. But the one that’s in the National now – it’s remarkably clear, and in fact still has a faint odour of the preservative the artist used – a very distinct chemical odour. Synthetic turpentine. Bad move.” Sherlock smiled. 

“So where’s the _real_ painting?” Bevan hissed. Sweat was beginning to bead on his brow. “I’m sick of this fucking game you’re playing, you and your friend, sick of being in the middle of it. So tell me where it is and I won’t have to have you killed. You wouldn’t be the first, you know.”

Sherlock stared at Bevan. “My friend?”

Bevan clenched his fist, then struck Sherlock hard across the face. He grasped a handful of Sherlock’s hair and yanked his head back. “Your buddy Jim!” he shrieked. “He stole the fucking painting and he took the wrong one – _mine_. I’m not going to be disgraced for a fucking game, Holmes.” Bevan’s face was red, close to Sherlock’s, and his breath shivered in and out in short, erratic bursts. He let Sherlock’s hair go and slapped him again, rocking Sherlock’s head backward.

 _Moriarty._ Sherlock tasted blood in his mouth and felt it trickling down his chin. He swiped his tongue against his lower lip. “Right,” he whispered. “Not so easy to steal a painting nowadays, with locking display systems and security cameras. He’d have to ensure that it was out of the display clamps, somewhere –“ Sherlock let out a little delighted gasp. “Oh, clever Jim. He donated the replica, and when you had a fit about a second painting, presented himself to you and said he could steal it.”

“I know that now!” Bevan bellowed. “It doesn’t take a goddamned genius to figure it out! But he took the wrong fucking painting and stuck me with the copy. That fucking bastard. And I had you watched, damn it – taking the sliver, finding the dust – I told them not to bring you in….” Bevan paced back and forth, rubbing his hands together.

“Quite easy to pull the wool over your eyes,” Sherlock said. “First the wine cellar – porous chalk soaking up all this damp and falling apart – tragic. You should sue the person who sold you the chalk. And now the painting. I hope you don’t collect Fabergé eggs, I think you’d be in for a disappointment. Your associates probably should have let Jim do all the work on his own and not have tracked dust all over the museum. He’s really very competent without your help, you know.”

“He called me last night. _Laughed_ at me and asked if you’d figured it all out yet.” Bevan stopped pacing and stood in front of Sherlock. “Said he might reconsider and give it back if I handed you over to him. Do you know, I’m thinking about it? I don’t think you’re worth thirty-seven million pounds, Holmes.”

A faint flutter of apprehension awoke in Sherlock’s stomach. “Most people would agree with you.”

“I told him I’d think about it.” Bevan grinned. “And I’ll give you a couple of hours to think about it too. You either decide you’re going to find it for me and keep your goddamned big mouth shut, or I call Jim and have his friends pick you up. And I don’t think it’s going to be for an afternoon of whist and tea.”

Sherlock began twisting his hands behind his back, trying to loosen the cord that bound them. John wasn’t due back at the flat until after six – even later if he actually managed to accomplish the errands Sherlock had given him – and he didn’t have time to waste waiting for a rescue. “I’ll think about it.”

“You do that. But you’re not going to be comfortable, either. String him up.” 

As Bevan walked out of the room, the three men left behind surrounded Sherlock. One cut the ropes around his waist and wrists, and the other two pulled him from the chair. His ankles and knees still tied together, Sherlock wobbled and would have fallen but for the men on either side, who caught him and supported his weight. Sherlock snarled at them. “Very truly yours, but –“

“Shut up,” one of the men said, and untied the blindfold from where it hung round Sherlock’s neck. He forced it between Sherlock’s teeth, pulled tightly, and knotted it at the back of his head. Another man ripped off Sherlock’s dressing gown, tugged the belt through the loops, and let the gown drop to the floor. Blue silk pooled at Sherlock’s feet. He cursed and struggled as his wrists were tied with the long, thin length of silk, this time in front, but it did him no good at all.

“Tape,” someone muttered. One of the men disappeared and re-emerged with a roll of gaffers’ tape. One of the men ripped off a long piece and wrapped it round Sherlock’s wrists, while another threw a heavy rope over one of the cellar’s thick supporting beams and stood on the chair to knot it tightly, leaving a fairly long length dangling.

Sherlock stared at the rope in mounting dread. Whatever they’d planned, it didn’t look pleasant. _String him up – oh, Christ…._

Knowing it was hopeless, he flung his body forward, trying to get away, shouting for help beneath the gag that didn’t really stifle sound, but garbled it and cut painfully into the corners of his mouth. There had to be other staff above the cellars, kitchen help, chambermaids, anyone –

“Grab him, Christ’s sake!”

They pulled him backward and held his bucking body as the man who’d hit him with the stun gun tore off a long length of tape and wrapped it around his head, sealing his mouth off from just below his nose to his chin and silencing him almost completely. Sherlock kept struggling, his breath hissing from his nose, but it was more difficult to get air, and utterly impossible when hard fingers pinched his nose shut. _Can’t breathe, oh God –_

“Listen, Holmes. _Listen._ Keep still, and I won’t kill you. You listening?”

Frantic, Sherlock nodded, and he forced himself to keep still even though every pore cried out for air and his whole body commanded him to fight the obstruction that denied him breath. With some preparation he could have held his breath for a fair amount of time, but he’d been taken by surprise. That seemed to be happening a lot just lately.

“Right.” The man let go, and Sherlock sucked in as much air as he could through his nostrils. Bright blue spots danced in front of his eyes. “Now. You’re going to get a little tickle with a rubber hose for being a smart-arse, Holmes, but first we’re going to let you think about it for an hour or so. Anticipation, don’t you know. Come on, lads.”

They yanked his arms over his head and looped the rope through his bound wrists. One man, evidently the strongest, stood on a chair once more and doubled the length of rope, pulling Sherlock’s arms taut, then his entire body until Sherlock dangled a few centimetres above the stone floor. 

Still dazed from lack of air, Sherlock scarcely felt the pressure on his body until the men stepped away, admiring their handiwork. He blinked to try to clear his vision, and slowly, almost too slowly, as if his conscious mind was attempting to deny the clear, cold facts, he realised what was happening.

In order for normal breathing to occur, two sets of muscles were required: the thoracic diaphragm, the thin sheet of internal skeletal muscle extending across the bottom of the rib cage, and the intercostal muscles between the ribs. Whilst functioning normally, those muscles expanded and contracted the chest cavity during breathing. But suspension by the hands or wrists would result, after a brief period, in loss of muscular function. In short, he’d stop breathing, and die of positional asphyxiation.

 _No, you idiots_ , he wanted to scream, but they wouldn’t have understood a word, and he was already starting to feel the constriction of his muscles, not to mention a burning pain in his arms and shoulders. They laughed at him, waved a mocking farewell, and left, closing a heavy wooden door behind them. Sherlock was alone.

 _Right. Don’t panic. You have about twenty minutes of air until you black out completely._ He glanced up at the rope that suspended him above the floor. It was thick and sturdy, holding his weight easily, and there’d be no way to break it. He stretched, arching toward the floor, and felt the tips of his toes just brushing the stone. The motion set his body swinging a bit, and reduced his airflow. A wave of dizziness washed over him, leaving him a bit frightened. He heard his breath, rapid and sharp from his nostrils, and felt the thud of his heartbeat in his eardrums.

_You’re not exactly prolonging your life._

The only thing left was to lift himself up a bit, and if he didn’t do it quickly, his hands would go numb and he’d be completely out of luck. They already tingled from the pressure of his weight and the silk and tape wrapped tightly around his wrists. Patiently, he flexed his fingers, then grasped the rope and used every bit of his upper-body strength to lift himself and cling to the two handspans of rope that stretched between the beam and his wrists. His chest expanded gratefully, and he welcomed the cold air, thin a stream as it was, as it flowed into his nose.

If he could hold himself up for a bit, until they got back, he’d be fine. The morons had obviously seen too many stupid films and hadn’t any idea that hanging someone up thus was a really efficient way to kill them; if Jim Moriarty really was planning to collect him, Sherlock would have bet he wouldn’t be too happy to see his quarry dangling dead from a beam. It was almost worth waiting for, but he wasn’t especially eager to wind up in Jim Moriarty’s hands, dead or alive.

How long could one hold on to a rope? He’d never tested it, but things weren’t looking especially optimistic. His upper arms were already trembling with the effort of holding himself up, and his fingers were rapidly going numb. It would have been easier without the tape wrapped around his head. Why couldn’t they have just put a little strip over his mouth the way they did in the stupid films? Something he could have just pushed off with his tongue? It didn’t really follow that they were so completely inept in one area and over-thorough in another. Maybe he could peel it off if he made a bit of an effort.

Sherlock lifted himself a bit higher, ignoring the protestations of his overtaxed body. His face was close to his hand – just a bit closer. He reached out two fingers, slipped, and fell the short distance. His shoulders took most of the impact, sending bright red fireworks through his chest and arms, and he gave a strangled cry of agony. His body swung in short arcs, like a pendulum concocted by some demented clockmaker, as he tried to breathe through the pain. He tried to grasp the rope again, but his fingers were past strength or even sensation. Afraid he was going to pass out, he lifted his legs, holding his knees as high as he could to try to take off some of the pressure on his chest. 

_It hurts. Oh, it really hurts._

Stupid, ignominious way to die. Asphyxiation, and totally ignored in the bargain. God knew how Bevan was planning to get rid of his body. Doubtless Moriarty would have a hand in it, make him disappear completely. He’d fix it all, and John would search for Sherlock in vain.

Oh, God. John.

He couldn’t hold his knees up any longer. They dropped toward the floor, and Sherlock’s ribcage felt like iron clamps tightening round his body, murdering him slowly.

A tide of remorse and despair unleashed itself and forced a groan from Sherlock’s aching chest. If John saw his message, he’d come looking. Of course he would; Sherlock hadn’t written it thinking John would vacillate. He’d charge in, heedless of the danger, and not only would he be too late, but he might get himself killed as well.

 _John_. A series of images fluttered through Sherlock’s eidetic consciousness, a compressed set of every moment they’d spent together since they’d met, but it wasn’t the adventures they’d shared that had left the strongest impression after the images faded; instead, he simply saw John’s face. Youthful, but life had happened to it, leaving strain around the dark blue eyes and a tautness around his mouth. Sometimes he’d smile in a certain way, though, and the tautness and strain would disappear, and Sherlock had fancied, if only fleetingly, that perhaps that particular smile was for him alone. And if John charged into a fray, Sherlock wanted to be beside him, not helpless, not dangling from a stupid crossbeam pathetically choking his last breaths through his nose. He didn’t want to die, he wasn’t ready – they had so much to do, the pair of them. John was too fine and good to leave, not just yet.

He didn’t have the strength for anything but breathing any longer, and that was dwindling. His vision was starred with bright flashes of red and blue. He gave one last weak tug at his bonds, but there was no slackening. A soft sound of anguish worked its way from his throat. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.

As he lost consciousness, he fancied he heard John’s voice saying his name, and his last thought was one of mingled gratitude and regret. He might have wished for John to say something else besides his name, but he had no more time.

 

*

 

“Sherlock, you hungry?” John, laden with bags, post, and suits wrapped in dry-cleaning plastic, pushed the door shut with his foot and thumped the bags down. “MacBurney’s had those chicken pasties you like, so I reckoned I’d get a couple for lunch since I forgot mine.” John laid the dry cleaning over the back of a chair and dumped the post – six periodicals (two of his, four of Sherlock’s), bills, and a pile of handwritten letters from hopeful would-be clients – onto the seat. “You could have picked up the post, at least.” He glanced at the couch, then looked over his shoulder at the messy kitchen. “Or done a bit of tidying, but God forbid….” 

He picked up the bags, went into the kitchen, and set the bags on the table. “I called the archive and reserved the monograph you wanted,” he called, washing his hands. “Of course they wouldn’t hear of it until I said I was working with you, and even then I had to sign away my first-born child, but I got it. I’ll pick it up tonight.” John took out a flat baking pan, set the pasties on it, and popped it in the oven. “Sherlock?”

The bathroom door was ajar, as was Sherlock’s bedroom door, and the flat had the empty, lonely air of Sherlock’s abandonment. John doubled back and saw Sherlock’s coat and scarf flung over the desk chair. “Sherlock?” He went to the stairs. “Are you up there?”

Well, he wouldn’t go out without his coat and scarf, which meant he was down at Mrs. Hudson’s – no, Mrs. Hudson went out with her friends on Fridays – or he was upstairs and ignoring John, or he was asleep in his bedroom. John checked the bedroom and saw the mess of newspapers, clothes, and sundry other articles on Sherlock’s bed that hadn’t been touched for days, but no Sherlock.

“Sherlock! Come on, get down here. I’ve only got half an hour – got to get back to the surgery.” He went into the kitchen and saw the overturned dish of egg gunk that Sherlock had been fiddling with earlier in the morning. “Oh. Lovely.” It had dried into a shiny, sticky film that would probably take hours of soaking to coax off. He shrugged out of his parka, folded a tea towel, ran it under warm water, and placed it over the mess, then went upstairs. “Sherlock, I swear if you’re in my room, I’m going to –“ He pushed his door open and was greeted by the sight of his room – minimally furnished, bed made, undecorated but for a poster of a mountain lake in New Zealand and a photo of Harry and Clara taken during one of their periods of reconciliation.

Well, he’d gone out, then. Fine. John was hungry enough to eat both pies. He turned round and went downstairs, stepping on a feeling of disappointment. It wasn’t often that he came home for lunch; it just wasn’t convenient. Much easier to grab a bit of takeaway or eat in the office on a break. Funny, though – he’d really felt like a chat, and besides, he’d left his lunch behind. It would have been nice….

 _Where the hell did he go without his coat? Bloody freezing out there._ The snow was still falling thickly from the sky, and aboveground traffic had come to a dead halt. If it kept up, London would be paralysed. Might be fun, later, to have a walk in the snow. The first of the Christmas lights had just made their appearance, and the snow made them that much prettier. Sherlock would moan and complain if John dragged him out for a walk – near-catatonia or St. Vitus’ dance were Sherlock’s two main states of existence, but he’d wind up enjoying it, even if he never said so. There was a look lately in Sherlock’s eyes that belied his tetchiness – it wasn’t quite sentimental, more of that sly humour mingled with an unspoken acknowledgement of his own stubbornness, a challenge to John, and John had found himself picking that particular gauntlet up more frequently of late.

A smile tugged at John’s mouth despite his disappointment at Sherlock’s absence. He ate one of the pasties, drank a cup of tea, and put the other pasty in a covered dish and replaced it in the oven. It would keep warm for another forty minutes or so. He pulled out his phone and sent Sherlock a text:

_CAME, WENT, LEFT A PASTY FOR YOU IN THE OVEN._

As he was struggling into his parka, he heard the chirp of Sherlock’s phone. He glanced up, frowning.

_What the hell?_

Sherlock might – _might_ – dash out of the flat and leave his coat behind….

_He wouldn’t. He really, really wouldn’t._

….but leave without his mobile?

John crossed to the desk and saw Sherlock’s phone. He picked it up and gazed at it for a moment.

_That’s not right._

“Sherlock?” he asked the empty room, very softly.

There was, of course, no answer.

Carefully, as though it were a fragile piece of crystal, John set Sherlock’s phone back on the desk. He looked at it for a moment, and then, without a single wasted movement and with a cold certainty settling inexorably into his heart, walked downstairs and examined the door. Bright, new scratches around the tarnished brass work – a file, a blade, some other implement that had gained someone – or several someones – unlawful entry.

“Shit,” John whispered, and ran upstairs again. He scanned the flat anxiously. There was nothing amiss, nothing but the overturned dish of egg gloop. “Christ, Sherlock –“

His hand was on his phone and plugging in Mycroft’s number before he even knew exactly what he was doing.

“Hello, John.” Mycroft’s voice was calm, unemotional. “Remarkable restraint yesterday – my most effusive congratulations. I think you’re beginning to have a stabilising effect upon my brother.”

“Mycroft,” John said, “did Sherlock disable _all_ the bugs in the flat the other day?”

A sigh hissed out of the phone. “You would know better than I, John, since you were there at the time. Of course he did. The last footage I have of the two of you is Sherlock making a rude gesture and you giggling. Really very childish –“

“You’re sure?” John sifted through the debris on the table, looking for something, anything to help him figure out what the hell had happened. Sherlock had enemies – more than most. His gaze fell on the matte glow of Sherlock’s laptop. There was a sticky shine on it….

“Naturally I’m sure. You are aware, John, that I respect your privacy and therefore the lavatory and bedrooms are off limits, but surely even you must agree that the cameras in the public rooms are merely a reasonable precaution. You….”

Mycroft’s voice faded into a soothing hum as John cradled the phone between ear and shoulder and picked up the laptop, tilting it toward the light. His heart thudded painfully as he read the three words streaked onto the cover.

JOHN  
BEVAN  
HELP

“Oh, Christ. Jesus Chr –“ John set the laptop down and looked wildly around the flat. He saw the snow, a haze of white, soft and silent. _Never get a taxi in this weather_ , he thought. _Where the hell, oh, god damn it –_

“Even so, it’s for his own good. And yours, I might add.” Mycroft was still talking.

“Mycroft!” John barked. “Listen to me. I need a car, and I need it _now._ ”

 

*

 

The Range Rover stopped about a hundred paces away from Bevan’s house. John checked to verify that the extra magazines he’d stowed in his jacket pocket were safe, and then turned to the sturdy young man driving. “Right. I don’t want a hostage situation if we can possibly avoid it, so I’m going to reconnoiter a bit.”

“With respect, Dr. Watson, I don’t know if that’s the best course of action,” the young man, who’d identified himself as Matt Caldwell, replied. “We should hit hard and fast, and get Mr. Holmes out of there quickly, if indeed he’s inside. He may have guards close by, and the quicker we can take them out, the better.” He paused, then added, “And we’d like to avoid endangering you, sir.”

John marveled briefly at the exquisite politeness of Mycroft’s little army of trained killers. He heaved a quick breath, then nodded. He was emotional, too bloody emotional, and he couldn’t afford to be. He needed all the help he could get. “All right. I’ll follow your lead.” He peered anxiously at the house, a very pretty and graceful Georgian, its doors and windows decorated with thick garlands of holly. In the snow, it looked like a picture postcard, not a prison. _Sherlock, I hope you’re okay._

God help Bevan if he wasn’t.

 

*

 

In the midst of action, Mycroft’s men were decidedly less polite.

“Hands _up_! On the floor! On the fucking floor, _right fucking now_!”

Two men in suits as well as a maid and a man who might have been Bevan’s butler dropped to the ground, cowering. One of Bevan’s hirelings, his face a greyish white at the sight of five heavily armed black-clad men, nevertheless reached into his jacket in a display of either bravery or stupidity, and one of Mycroft’s men fired. A blackish-red hole appeared in the man’s throat, and he fell over, an expression of extreme surprise on his face. 

“Check upstairs,” Caldwell ordered, and two of the black-clad men thundered up the stairs, weapons drawn. There was a startled feminine scream, and sobbing.

John moved to one of the men in suits and crouched beside him, pressing the barrel to his temple. “Where’s Sherlock?”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” the man muttered sullenly.

John thumbed the safety off. “Don’t you?”

“Jesus, okay, okay – back off.”

“Where is he?”

“Downstairs. Wine cellar.”

Caldwell prodded the man with his foot. “Anyone else down there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh.” Calmly, Caldwell fired, putting a gaping hole in the man’s hand. The man shrieked and curled up on the floor, writhing. “You sure?”

“Nobody! Nobody! Jesus _Christ_!”

“I’ve got it,” John said, and went to the maid, who was sobbing quietly on the floor. He helped her up, and despite the weapon he held, she clung to him on shaking legs. “Nobody’s going to hurt you,” he said softly, and braced her with an arm around her waist. “I need you to show me where the cellar door is, okay?”

“I didn’t know,” she whimpered.

“Usually means she did know,” Caldwell translated with weary good humour, as his men set about binding the men on the floor with zip ties. 

“I didn’t, I swear –“

“Okay. Just show me.”

Still crying, the girl led John to a thick door and pointed at it. John nodded. “Okay. Get back. There might be an exchange of fire.” He pushed the door open and descended the stone staircase silently. There was a corridor at the bottom of the stairs illuminated by hanging bulbs, white brick that looked as if it was beginning to mould, and at the end of the corridor, another door. 

His footsteps making no sound, John went to the door, listened, and then turned the knob. He threw the door open, shoulder-rolled in, straightening in a firing position, his Sig aimed at the figure in the middle of the room. He focused in the gloom, then gasped. “Sherlock.”

Sherlock was hanging by his wrists to one of the thick supporting rafters. His head was tipped forward, but not so much that John couldn’t tell that he was gagged; the tape gleamed dully in the dim light, wrapped round his head. He was wearing his t-shirt and pyjama trousers, and his feet were bare. He was utterly still, and only the faintest respiration signaled to John that he was still alive.

_Barely. Oh, Christ, he’s asphyxiating. How long did that sadistic bastard hang him up there?_

A flash of memory overlaid itself upon the cellar’s gloom: a rescue mission in Afghanistan, a young soldier who’d been captured and tortured and similarly bound. They’d saved his comrades, but had been too late to save him; with half a score of broken ribs and a fractured sternum, he’d died within ten minutes of his captors hanging him up. All they could do was cut him down and bring his body home.

He’d be _damned_ if he was going to let that happen again.

Caldwell had given him a Fairbain knife in an ankle holster. John pulled it in one swift, smooth motion, hooked a nearby chair with his toe, and leapt onto it to saw at the rope. It sliced through the tough fibers with gratifying speed, and in a few seconds Sherlock’s arms had dropped and he collapsed. John caught him round the waist and lowered him to the chair, hanging on until he was able to jump down and cradle Sherlock in his arms. “Sherlock,” he said softly. “Sherlock, it’s going to be okay. I’ve got you.”

Sherlock was silent and utterly still, barely triggering respiration on his own, his face above the tape a terrifying bluish-white. _Clear the airway, still time for neurological impairment, oh Christ, Sherlock_. With painstaking care, John slid the tip of the knife beneath the tape and cut gently upwards against Sherlock’s cheek. It wasn’t the quickest path to his mouth, but there was the least chance of injury. Gently, he peeled back the tape and prised a band of dark cloth from between Sherlock’s teeth. _Bastards. Fucking bastards._

It still wasn’t enough. His fingers found the pulse in Sherlock’s neck, weak, too fast, but still there, God damn it, no evidence of cardiac arrest. “Okay, Sherlock.” John forced himself to speak calmly, as if Sherlock could hear him, as if he weren’t lying on the floor of this god-damned cellar because of some fucking painting, and if he got his hands on Bevan the man wouldn’t walk for a month. “We’re going to get some air into those lungs of yours.” As he spoke, he cut the tape and fabric – Sherlock’s dressing gown sash – from round his wrists and placed his arms to his sides. Then he cut the rope that bound Sherlock’s knees and ankles. “That should help a bit. Your heart’s in grand shape, that’s good news, very good. Just hang in there. I’m going to perform insufflation, all right, love? We’ll bring you round in a moment.” 

John knelt close to Sherlock, tipped his head back, pinched his nose shut, and sealed his mouth over Sherlock’s, breathing in. Two slow breaths, then up. He looked at Sherlock’s chest rising gently. “Good. Good. Yes.” Two more breaths, his mouth and Sherlock’s tight against each other. Two in and wait. Two in and wait. Sherlock’s chest moving now, but he didn’t stop. Two in, wait. And again, and again. His fingers found Sherlock’s pulse again. “Oh, God, that’s brilliant. You’re a star, Sherlock. Keep breathing.” Two more breaths, slow and steady, and Sherlock’s eyes flew open. An odd, froggy sound escaped his chest, and John, seasoned veteran of half a hundred rescue breathing actions, quickly turned Sherlock over on his side. 

Sherlock made another choking noise, then threw up, heaving bile onto the stone floor. John rubbed his back in slow circles, smiling in relief. Tears blurred his eyes. “Music to my ears,” he said, and slid his arms beneath Sherlock’s armpits, supporting him. “That’s it, get it out if you need to. It’s all right. All right.” Sherlock coughed feebly and dry-heaved a few times, then groaned. “Probably feels vile, doesn’t it? It’s okay, just keep breathing.”

Sherlock spat weakly on the floor and groaned again.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Dr. Watson?” a voice called.

“Down here! It’s okay.” John turned at the approaching clatter of booted feet, and saw Caldwell enter the room, holstering his Sig, followed by two more of his men. “Did you find Bevan?”

“Yeah, cowering up in his bedroom and holding his girlfriend hostage, the prick.” Caldwell’s voice dripped contempt. “There’s a paramedic unit here. Is he okay?”

“He will be,” John said shortly. “I need a bag valve mask, stat. And get Mycroft here as soon as you can.” He arranged Sherlock’s limbs in the recovery position and checked his airway. Good. Very good. Thank God.

“He’s on his way.” Caldwell turned on his heel, then paused. “You’re a cool customer, Dr. Watson.” He nodded shortly, and was gone, accompanied by the other two men.

John heard more voices, and the rattle of a stretcher and medical equipment. More lovely music. As the sounds drew closer, he gently brushed damp curls away from Sherlock’s face – still terribly white, but no longer with that frightening tinge of blue – then leant down and planted a soft kiss upon Sherlock’s temple. 

“Thank God,” he whispered, and scarcely knew that it was a prayer.

 

*

 

Sherlock folded the newspaper shut with a decisive snap. “So much for keeping it all out of the papers.”

“At least they left your name out.” John held the _Guardian_ close to his nose. “But the missing security guard turned up in the boot of a car, apparently. Poor bloke.”

“Apparently.” Sherlock blew out an impatient breath and picked up a cake of rosin, then dropped into his chair. He tightened the bow a bit and bounced it on his knee. “More fool him for agreeing to help Moriarty.”

John felt his mouth drawing downward at the sound of the shrug in Sherlock’s voice and deliberately turned a page. “So Bevan had underworld ties.”

“It would seem so.”

“That’s two art crimes Moriarty’s committed. What do you reckon he’s playing at?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Looks like quite a bit of Bevan’s money came fr –“

“John.” Sherlock’s voice cut into John’s musing with icy precision. “I really don’t care.”

John clamped his lips shut so that his sigh issued from his nose. “Fine,” he said lightly, folding the newspaper up and dropping it on the floor. “Fine. Just making conversation.” 

Sherlock didn’t respond, nor glance up at him. He rubbed the rosin cake across his bowstrings in a gentle, sweeping motion.

So that was how it was going to be. Not a word about what had happened, not a word about Moriarty, who’d got away with the real painting, who’d been identified in the papers only as a figure with strong ties to an international criminal element. John would have guessed that Sherlock was cross about Moriarty getting away with theft, not to mention murder, right under his nose, but there was something else he couldn’t put his finger on, something that bothered him personally, and of course Sherlock would probably die before mentioning it. John peered at Sherlock’s impassive countenance, shook his head, and sipped at his lukewarm tea.

The fire crackled pleasantly behind the grate. Sherlock flexed his bare toes, put the bow to the strings of his violin, and heaved a very loud and very long sigh. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, John.”

“What?” John felt his brows drawing together. “I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t even thinking anything, so –“

“Right. If I’m going to have you staring at me all night with that long face –“

John placed his hands on the arms of the chair. “Shall I go?”

Sherlock waved his bow airily. “No, stay, by all means. You clearly have something you want to say to me, so say it. Get it off your chest. Talk it out, Doctor. There’s a couch right over there if you need it.”

The sneering contempt in Sherlock’s voice set John’s teeth on edge, and it took all he had not to get up and hit his flatmate in the mouth. Instead, he grasped the arms of the chair and kept his voice even and steady. “You’re full of it, aren’t you?”

Sherlock gaped at him. “Sorry?”

“You heard me. God, maybe I really am stupid.” John shook his head. “Every time something’s bothering you, you get extra snotty. Took me long enough to work it out.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant. So you’re a psychoanalyst now. Do continue, I’m all for enlightenment.”

“No you’re not, but I’ll go on anyway.” John held Sherlock’s gaze as he picked up his cooling tea and took another sip. Sherlock was watching him with wide eyes; like most people (and oh, Christ, he’d be annoyed to hear it) he’d sit still for any amount of nattering, even abuse, as long as he was the focus of the discussion. “You were –“ John stopped and forced himself to be a little more gentle. “Weren’t you scared, Sherlock? Christ, that security guard died. You almost died.” The truth of his words pierced his insides, and he nearly groaned in pain. “You almost _died_ , for fuck’s sake.”

Sherlock blinked. “But I didn’t.”

“But you almost did.”

“But I _didn’t._ ” Sherlock set his bow and violin down and briefly touched his fingertips to his temples. “You showed up in time. Well done. Wait, did I neglect to thank you? Thank you for rescuing me, John. I appreciate it.”

“Oh, Jesus, Sherlock, you know that’s not it.” John stood up and began to pace. “Don’t you get it? I almost _didn’t_ show up. If I hadn’t come home for lunch…Christ, if I’d been even fifteen minutes later, you’d be dead.”

“John, I’m really not quite comprehending what you’re trying to say. I agree it was a fortuitous series of events that led to you finding me, but the point is that you did find me, and thanks to your quick thinking and actions I’m perfectly fine. What on earth are we quarrelling about?”

John clamped his teeth together and accidentally bit the side of his tongue. A bright, brief pain stabbed and lingered for a moment, but he was grateful for it, because he was almost ready to walk over to Sherlock’s chair, grab him by the shoulders, and shake him until his superior and yet stupendously clueless brain rattled in his head. He counted to ten, then twenty, then thirty. He tasted blood in his mouth and swallowed against the bitter metallic tang before he spoke again. “I might not always be there, Sherlock. I…I mean, one day, someone with a grudge is going to try to bump you off, and they might succeed. There are plenty of people who hate you. You know that.”

Sherlock shrugged. “And I might be hit by a bus tomorrow.”

“Well, tell me then. Which is more statistically likely – you getting hit by a bus, or some lunatic with an ax to grind breaking into the flat and murdering you?”

An odd little smile had appeared on Sherlock’s face. He leant back in his chair. “Don’t worry, John. I’m sure they wouldn’t try to kill you too. You’d be collateral damage, and most psychopaths are hyper-focused on –“

“It’s not a joke!” John snapped, and put a hand to his cheek. His tongue really hurt. He lowered his voice, changed the timbre to a near-plea. “Sherlock, don’t you see? People like Bevan, like Moriarty –“ Sherlock flinched a bit, but John went on. “They don’t give a damn about you. All right, forget Moriarty. The other ones, the greedy bastards like Bevan, they see you as an obstacle. They’re not going to play some stupid game of cat and mouse with you. They don’t value your brain, or any of your talents, or – they’ll just kill you after you piss them off.” He hesitated. “When I was in Afghanistan, I saw a soldier executed by – the same way you were strung up. It was awful. You’ve no idea. Sherlock, I couldn’t bear it if that had happened to you.” He stared at Sherlock, his eyes full of naked pleading.

Sherlock was quiet for a moment, then stood up and glared down at John. “So I should just stop. Is that what you’re saying? Stop solving crimes and assisting the Met when it hasn’t but Lestrade as its brain stem and cerebral cortex, and even he – stop and perhaps find a nice, quiet little profession to keep me busy? Maybe start a blog, like you? I see you’ve been getting advert offers in your email. You might want to give that some serious thought; there could be a living in it yet.”

John wasn’t going to be drawn. “They don’t care about you, Sherlock, not as a person.”

Two spots of crimson had appeared high on Sherlock’s cheeks. “My life doesn’t need you to protect it, John.” He pressed his lips together, shook his head a little, and then spoke with withering finality. “It never has.”

There had been worse insults directed his way. Much worse. When he’d first joined the medical corps, his commanding officer had called him a no-good snivelling short-arse lump of dog shit. Once he’d been briefly captured outside of Kabul, and his captors had beaten him and called him names he couldn’t understand, but the rage in their voices had been as evident as the clubs that had left huge welts on his unprotected body. As a medical student, he’d been shrieked at by his fair share of supervising physicians. One had hurled a bedpan at his head for nothing more than an innocent inquiry about the necessity for dissolving stitches versus medical adhesive.

None of that invective had cut the way Sherlock’s words had.

John felt his throat tighten, and he turned away. “Okay,” he replied softly. “That’s…that’s good to know, I guess.” He went to the door, feeling Sherlock’s gaze boring into him, and left without a backward glance, closing the door behind him.

Usually Sherlock shouted after John, commanding his immediate return, but this time there was nothing but silence from the flat.

 

*

 

He walked for an hour and a half, moving among the throngs of evening shoppers without really seeing a single face clearly. Christmas lights blazed around him, cheerful and romantic in the snow that still clung to the frozen ground, but he saw only an intrusive blur. He bought a falafel sandwich, but threw it away after only a few bites, still hearing Sherlock’s cold, angry voice in his head. 

Christ, it hurt.

_If that’s all I mean to him, after all this time, then sod it. Sod it._

He could have a normal life, after all: a job, maybe a nice, cozy little place out in a suburb, normal friends who didn’t leave body parts in the fridge and stay up all night stinking the flat up with chemicals and horrifying experiments involving offal and scraping away at the violin at holy-fuck-o’clock in the morning. He could have a girlfriend, a lovely, sweet woman with soft curves and long hair, someone to go on movie dates with and cuddle up in a car and eat pizza. He could get married, have a family. His life could be fulfilled in a way that couldn’t happen as Sherlock’s flatmate. He could live crowded with congenial people and unremarkable events…and, he realised, he’d have such a pleasant, ordinary life that he probably wouldn’t have comprehended his own emptiness. 

_Admit it, John. Go ahead._

“Jesus. Oh, God.”

 

*

 

Blindly, he staggered his way toward home. The lights were on in the flat, but he couldn’t make himself go inside, not quite yet. Apprehension battered at his already aching heart and made him quail. He went instead to the little green two streets away. He’d sit in the cold a bit, collect himself. 

And then he didn’t know what the fuck he was going to do.

As he approached the green, he saw a familiar figure on one of the benches, sitting alone. The figure lifted a hand to his lips, then blew out an extravagant plume of smoke.

_Fortuitous. Right._

He advanced slowly, giving Sherlock plenty of time to see him coming. 

Sherlock glanced at him; all the haughty self-satisfaction seemed to have fled his bearing, and his eyes moved quickly from John’s direct gaze. “Oh. Hello.”

“You probably shouldn’t be sitting out in the cold,” John said gently. “Your lungs took a real beating the other day.” He smiled. “Those cigarettes will kill you, too.”

Sherlock’s mouth tilted up at one end. “You’re probably right.” He dropped the cigarette, mostly intact, at his feet and ground it out with his heel, then picked it up and pitched it into the rubbish bin.

“You feeling okay? Your breathing, I mean.”

Sherlock gave a nod. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

“That’s good.” John stuck his hands in his pockets. “Mind if I sit down for a bit?”

“Oh. Please.” Sherlock moved over on the bench and crossed his arms over his chest. 

John sat and folded his hands together, assiduously looking everywhere but at Sherlock. Suddenly, the physical reality of him felt too intense to bear. He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, seeing only his profile clearly under his mop of curls. 

There was a sudden tightness in John’s throat. _Almost lost him. Can’t. Can’t lose him._

“The telly was playing that stupid Christmas movie you liked so much last year.”

“ _A Christmas Story_?”

“I don’t know. It’s black-and-white.”

“The one where Jimmy Stewart gets to see what life would have been like if he’d never been born?”

“That’s the one. Trite.”

John smiled. “ _It’s a Wonderful Life._ ” Sherlock stared at him uncomprehendingly. “That’s the name of the film,” he explained.

“Oh.” Sherlock looked down and fidgeted with the buttons of his coat. His breath issued from his lungs in frozen white puffs of air. “John.”

“Yeah?”

“I have a question.”

John couldn’t suppress a smile. _It’ll be okay,_ he thought. _I don’t need to…to be with him, not like that. I just want him around._ He turned to Sherlock and watched his face, so…so damned lovely, right now so downcast, and knew he was lying to himself, but it didn’t matter. He had to take what he could get. “What is it?”

“If you…suppose you hadn’t been able to reach Mycroft. If by some chance – I mean, I know it would be almost impossible given your limited resources, but if by some chance you had to come alone to Bevan’s…would you have?”

For a moment John simply stared at Sherlock. “Christ, how can you even ask that?” He saw Sherlock’s shoulders tense and clarified. “Of course I would. Sherlock, Jesus…of course.”

“I see.”

John rubbed a hand over his face. “Why…why would you ask me a thing like that?”

“It’s terribly risky. Dangerous.”

“So?”

Sherlock shrugged, and John saw his face in the yellowish lamplight. It was tight with some indeterminate emotion, locked behind one of Sherlock’s many walls. “I just thought that you might be getting a bit weary of it.”

 _Oh, God._ John moved closer to Sherlock and rested a hand on his shoulder. Sherlock flinched a bit but didn’t pull away. “Because of what I said?”

“Well, yes. Obviously.”

“How many times have you saved _my_ arse?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock replied in an irritable tone. “I wasn’t keeping score, John.”

“Sherlock,” John said, “I was scared for you. Scared shitless. Every time you open up your big tactless gob to some baddie I’m fucking terrified they’re going to turn around and pop a cap into you. And it’s not that I want you to go into hiding or retirement or whatever. I’m not an idiot – or at least I’m not _that_ much of an idiot. I know that what you do is…it’s like breathing to you. I know that.” He patted Sherlock’s shoulder awkwardly.

Sherlock kept his gaze fixed downward. “Thank you.”

“Thing is –“ John sighed. “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t around. I just got scared, that’s all.”

“I thought you were planning to leave.”

Strangely, John wanted to cry. “I’m not going anywhere.” He paused. “It’s just…sometimes it’s nice to hear that you’re needed, you know? Or wanted, or…hell, I don’t know.” _That’s good,_ he chided himself furiously. _Make a hash of it._ He hoped Sherlock would chalk his flushed cheeks up to the cold.

“I spoke in anger earlier, John. I apologise.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. It was wrong of me. You see, I really would be…quite lost without you.”

For one frail moment, time held its breath. And then John struggled to his feet, stood in front of Sherlock, leant down, taking Sherlock’s face in his hands, and kissed him.

 

*

 

It was New Year’s Eve before it actually happened; they endured three weeks of kissing, embracing, and rather furtive groping that left them both aroused but unsatisfied. John had thought it might have happened at Christmas, but the strain of having Mycroft, Harry, and Clara in the same room at one time effectively killed any erotic charge they’d built up. After a few more days of odd shyness, they’d agreed to go out to eat on New Year’s Eve.

They had dinner at Angelo’s; not posh, but comfortable, unpretentious, and brimming with memory. Sherlock’s fettucine and John’s pasta primavera sat mostly untouched. They drank most of a bottle of Pinot Noir and sat in silence. Occasionally their hands brushed against each other beneath the table. The candle flame danced to and fro; John watched it, half-hypnotised by the flickering light.

“Tonight,” Sherlock said softly.

John glanced at him, then back at the flame. “You sure?”

“Yes. Now, in fact.”

They walked back to the flat in trembling silence, gloved hands tightly clasped together. Even before they shut the door, they were kissing, Sherlock devouring John’s mouth with more ardor than skill, but it made no difference to John, who guided him into softer, more lingering caresses, who gentled Sherlock’s ferocity and who led him upstairs to the sparse bedroom and toppled him onto the single mattress.

Leaning back on his elbows, Sherlock gazed at John with eyes that sparkled pale blue in the dim lamplight. “John, I think you should know that I’m a virgin.”

“I think I knew that.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“Hell, no.” John shucked his jumper and jeans.

“Have you ever been with a man before?” Following John’s lead, Sherlock sat up and neatly stripped off his jacket, handing it to John. “Can you put that on the chair?”

John bit back a smile. For someone who frequently left the kitchen, front room, and his own bedroom looking like bomb sites, Sherlock was terribly persnickety about his clothing. “Sure. Um, yes, once before. In the army. Maybe a few times.”

“I see.” Sherlock wriggled out of his socks and trousers. “So for all your vehement protestations –“

“Sherlock.” John took Sherlock’s face in his hands again.

“Yes?”

“Shut up.” John pushed Sherlock back on the bed and kissed him thoroughly. Christ, he had a glorious mouth. He spread Sherlock’s knees apart and slipped between them, lowering himself just enough to rub his erection against Sherlock’s, both trapped behind fabric, practical cotton and silk in such a wonderful texture that John almost came from sliding his hands beneath Sherlock’s arse to caress it. “Oh, God.”

“I’m not quite sure what to do, John,” Sherlock murmured. He captured John’s earlobe in his teeth and nibbled.

“You’re doing really, really well. Oh, God.”

“Shouldn’t we have some sort of lubricant?”

“Oh, you’re so bloody practical at the wrong times….” John groaned as he reached beneath the bed for the bottle of hand lotion that reposed beside the stack of pornographic magazines, a holdover from pre-internet wanking. _Good job I don’t have to move much. I’m going to die if I don’t get to fuck him now._ Belatedly he wondered if Sherlock would prefer to initiate things. Might make him feel more secure. “D’you want to top?”

“Oh.” Sherlock squirmed underneath him, arching higher up to rub against John’s cock. “No, you first. Thanks for asking, though.”

“Right. Right. I’ve been tested, I’m –“

“Just fuck me,” Sherlock growled. “Fuck me, John.”

“Oh –“ John struggled to get his pants off, and groaned as the material rubbed against the sensitised skin, the wetness at the tip. “Raise up.” He peeled off Sherlock’s boxers and dropped them beside his own, and they were finally naked, skin to skin and frantic. John pumped some of the lotion into his hand and rapidly stroked himself. “Ready?”

“Yes. Do it.”

“Pick your knees up. A little higher. That’s it.” John pushed the head of his cock against Sherlock’s hole and worked his way inside. “Christ, fucking tight. Oh God.” Sherlock grimaced and dug his fingers into John’s arms. “Am I hurting you?” John whispered.

“Doesn’t matter. Keep going.”

John gritted his teeth and drove himself deeply into Sherlock’s body. He wanted to take it slowly, to savour every bit of Sherlock’s lanky strength, but he couldn’t help himself. He thrust frantically and finally thought to wrap his hand around Sherlock’s hard prick. Sherlock cried out and spilled over John’s hand, and the resulting tightness of Sherlock’s reaction sent John over the edge. He let out a muted roar and shuddered to a blinding climax, finally pulling out and collapsing beside Sherlock, panting and gasping for breath. 

There was silence in John’s bedroom broken only by the steady ticking of his old-fashioned alarm clock.

“Is it always that…quick?” Sherlock asked.

“Erm…it doesn’t have to be. I got a bit carried away,” John said apologetically.

“Ah.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no. I’m flattered.” Sherlock raised himself to one elbow and turned to face John. “Thank you.”

John reached out and traced the bow of Sherlock’s upper lip. “I like that.”

Bright pink flooded Sherlock’s cheeks. “Silly.”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Certainly.”

John pressed Sherlock to the mattress and kissed him, running a hand through Sherlock’s sweat-dampened curls. “I’ll make it better for you next time.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“Good.”

“Goodness. You really are quite…muscular.”

John chuckled. “Thanks.”

“It’s…it feels good.”

“Does it?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“John….”

John pulled back and gazed into Sherlock’s eyes, wide and brilliant, but alight with some emotion that John couldn’t parse. _Doesn’t matter. There’s time._ “What is it?”

As Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, the bells of St. Paul began to ring. Sherlock let out a short, shuddering breath, and smiled. “Happy New Year, John.”

John grinned, and kissed Sherlock again. _I love you too._

 

*

 

Sherlock awoke with a groan. John’s bed was horribly small and cramped. They would have to start sharing Sherlock’s bed, or Sherlock would have to insist that John buy a larger bed, or they’d have to sleep alone.

A larger bed for John it was, then.

Sherlock climbed out, pulled the covers over John, taking care not to disturb him, and tiptoed downstairs in the altogether. He had a piss, went into his bedroom, and selected a dressing gown, warm cashmere, not at all scratchy against his naked body. He put the kettle on and wandered to the window, pulling the curtain aside.

He was fond of this time of day. The sky was still halfway between darkness and light, the streets were quiet, and no matter his agenda, early mornings always felt unhurried, as if there was ample time for contemplation. 

He had, in fact, a great deal to contemplate.

Below him, the front door opened, and Mrs. Hudson, in her dressing gown, reached out to pluck the papers from the doorstep. She shut the door (new burglar-proof brass fittings) firmly as if to banish the frigid outdoor air, and the street was still once more.

Sherlock smiled, then moved to his desk and fumbled in a drawer. He loped across the room and took the stairs two at a time, jumping the last three to the landing. He tidied his hair, straightened his dressing gown, and knocked on the door.

Mrs. Hudson opened it. “Hello, dear. Happy New Year. Goodness, you’re going to catch your death in the hall in just your dressing gown.”

Sherlock folded his arms and waited for her to shut up. When she finally did, he reached into his pocket, withdrew a five-pound note, and handed it to her.

She frowned. “What on earth? Sherlock, what…?” She met his eyes, startlement in her own. “No.”

He pointed at her. “Not one word.” With a stiff nod, he wheeled and marched upstairs again.

Lilac-tinted light spilled into the flat. It was a new day, a new month, a brand-new year.

Sherlock turned off the kettle and went back upstairs, to John.

 

End.


End file.
